THE LI BRARY OF
YORK
UNIVERSITY
Presented by
Miss Hallle I. Shearer
YORK UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
3 9007 0425 5628 2
THE WHITE HILLS IN POETRY
BEARCAMP WATER
PHurO BY HOMES STUDIO, CHOCORUA
Health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Chocorua stealing. — Whittier
b
THE
WHITE HILLS IN POETRY
AN ANTHOLOGY
EDITED BY EUGENE R. MUSGROVE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
SAMUEL M. CROTHERS
AND WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY EUGENE R. MUSGKOVE
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published May tqxa
TO ALL WHO KNOW
THE SILENT LANGUAGE
OF THE HILLS
PREFACE
This book had its birth in a conviction that it
ought to be. It is not a guide-book, like Sweetser's
White Mountains^ nor a book of nature descrip-
tions, Hke Starr King's White Hills; but simply a
compilation of poetry, with the spirit of the White
Hills as its thread of unity.
The term "White Hills'* is of course interpreted
liberally. The book contains not only poems con-
cerning the higher summits, but also poems con-
cerning many outlying hills in the broad White
Mountain area described by Sweetser as extending
from the Connecticut to the Kennebec. It also
includes poems on rivers and lakes; for the hills are
the "cloud-cradles" of the streams, and, in the
words of Lucy Larcom, "mountains do not know
their own beauty anywhere but by a lakeside."
Thus interpreted, the White Hills have inspired
some of the best nature poetry in our literature;
and it is hoped that this volume, in collating this
literature for the first time, will make a strong ap-
peal to all "playmates of the hills."
Although the study of three thousand poems
(vii)
PREFACE
may not have exhausted the sources, the one
hundred and thirty-seven poems and the many
extracts and quotations here included are repre-
sentative. The old favorites, by Whittier, Lucy
Larcom, Edna Dean Proctor, Emerson, Longfel-
low, Trowbridge, and the rest, are all included,
and many others are assembled for the first time.
Names little known will therefore be found with
those that are famous; and after all, a feathered
chorus is not marred by the humbler singers.
The notes, mainly geographical and historical,
are designed for those who want to study the sub-
ject. For the same reason, brief biographies are
inserted. Spellings are modernized.
My deep gratitude is due Prof. Fred Lewis
Pattee of Pennsylvania State College — born in
my native village in the White Hills, and now a
fellow pilgrim to its mystic shrine — who, passing
judgment on my selections, was loath to see his
own work given prominence; Prof. Charles F.
Richardson of Dartmouth College, inspirer of
young men, who approved of my plan in college
and more recently gave valuable suggestions; Mr.
Arthur H. Chase, librarian of the New Hampshire
State Library; George Waldo Browne, editor of
( viii )
PREFACE
The Granite State Magazine; and Mrs. H. C.
Sturtevant of Center Harbor, Prof. F. O. Carpen-
ter of North Woodstock, Mrs. Eva Beede Odell of
Meredith, and scores of others who answered my
inquiries. I also acknowledge previous works
touching on the subject, especially Longfellow's
Poems of PlaceSy Starr King's White HiUs, Sweet-
ser's While Mountains^ The Granite Monthly , and
The Granite State Magazine.
Acknowledgments are also due to Mr. Fred-
erick J. Allen for permission to reprint two of
his poems, to Messrs. Dana Estes & Co. for the
use of two poems by Frederic Lawrence Knowles,
to Messrs. Little, Brown & Co. for two poems by
Helen Hunt Jackson and one by Mary Elizabeth
Blake, to the Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Company
for permission to quote from Back Country Poems,
by Sam Walter Foss, and to Small, Maynard &
Co. for the use of two poems from Hovey's Along
the Trail, Most of the selections are from authors
whose works are published by Houghton Mifflin
Company.
The illustrations, many of them from copy-
righted photographs, are printed through the
courtesy of the Detroit Publishing Company,
(k)
PREFACE
Kimball & Son of Concord, A. W. Moody of
Bristol, the Shorey Studio of Gorham, the Homes
Studio of Chocorua, and Henry D. Allison of
Dublin.
Eugene R. Musgrove.
Worcester Academy,
AprU, 1912.
I
CONTENTS
rRODUcnoN, by Samuel M. Crothers , . . xxi
I — THE HEART OF THE HILLS
Mountaineer's Prayer, by Lucy Larcom . . 3
New Hampshire, by John Greenleaf Whittier . . 5
Easter in the White Hills, by Edna Dean Proc-
tor 6
Enthralled, by Celia Thaxter 9
Mount Washington, by Edward Augustus Jenks 11
In the Crystal Hills, by John Greenleaf Whittier 12
Mount Webster, by David McConnell Smyth . 15
Franconia Notch, by Harry Hibbard ... 16
Lake of the Clouds, by Henry Clay Henderson 17
Men of New Hampshire, by Richard Hovey . 21
The Willey Slide, by Thomas William Parsons . 22
New Hampshire, by Frederic Lawrence Knowles . 25
On the Mountain, by Mary Elizabeth Blake . 28
Mount Agiochook, by John Greenleaf Whittier . 29
Garfield's Burial-Day, by Lucy Larcom . . 31
Moosilauke, by Edna Dean Proctor .... 33
'Jhb Granite State, by George Bancroft Griffith 34
(xi)
CONTENTS
The White Hills, by William Plumer ... 35
At the Flume House, by William Channing Gan-
nett 38
Looking Down, by Lucy Larcom .... 37
The Ascent of Mount Lafayette, by Fanny
Runnells Poole 38
Sunset on Mount Washington, by George Waldo
Browne 40
The Profile, by Harry Hibbard .... 42
Mount Liberty, by Karl Pomeroy Harrington . 43
Nook near Lafayette, by George Bancroft Griffith 45
The Old Man of the Mountain, by John Town-
send Trowbridge 46
Peabody Glen, by William Roujiseville Alger . 52
In a Cloud-Rift, by Lucy Larcom .... 53
The Old Man of the Mountain, by Charles
Fletcher Lummis 5Q
Keep the Forests! by Edna Dean Proctor . . 57
The Summit-Flower, by Lucy Larcom . . .61
Sunset on Profile Lake, by Charles Fletcher
Lummis 63
In the White Mountains, by Richard Watson
Gilder 64
(xii)
CONTENTS
The Hills are Home, hy Edna Dean Proctor . 65
Asleep on the Summit, hy Lucy Larcom . . 69
II — THE BEARCAMP COUNTRY
Among the Hills, by John Greenleaj Whittier . 73
Whiteface, hy Stephen Henry Thayer ... 98
Chocorua, hy Caroline Whiton-Stone ... 99
Voyage of the Jettie, hy John Greenleaj Whittier 100
Clouds on Whiteface, hy Lucy Larcom . .107
Mount Chocorua, hy Edudn Osgood Grover . .108
On Ossipee, by Lucy Larcom 109
The Seeking of the Waterfall, by John Green-
leaf Whittier 110
Death of Chocorua, hy Charles James Fox . .115
Friend Brook, by Lucy Larcom . . . .117
The Spirit of Wordsworth, by Philip Henry
Savage 119
Chocorua Lake, by John Albee . . . .121
A Mountain-Resurrection, by L\icy Larcom . 122
The Log-Cock, by Frank Bolles . . . .124
Sunset on the Bearcamp, by John Greenleaf
Whittier 126
Chocorua, by Lucy Larcom 130
k( xiii )
CONTENTS
III — THE LAKE-LAND
The Lakeside, hy John Greenleaf Whittier . . 133
At Alton Bay, by HezeJdah Butterwortk . . . 135
A Summer Pilgrimage, by John Greenleaf Whittier 138
Pasquaney, by Fred Lewis Pattee .... 143
The Grave by the Lake, by John Greenleaf Whit-
tier 145
At Winnipesaukee, by Lucy Larcom . , .153
The Hill-Top, by John Greenleaf Whittier . . 157
To Lake Sunapee, by John Duncan Quackenbos . 161
Sunset on Lake Winnipesaukee, by Emma Ger-
trude Weston 162
Storm on Lake Asquam, by John Greenleaf Whittier 164
A Legend of the Lake, by John Greenleaf Whittier 166
Lake Winnipesaukee, by Fanny Runnells Poole . 172
To Lake Asquam, by Walter Peaslee . . . 173
The Wood Giant, by John Greenleaf Whittier . 174
Lake Sunapee, by Clark Cochrane . . . .177
Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, by John Greenleaf
Whittier 178
The Voice on the Mountain, by Fred Levns
Pattee 181
( xiv )
h
CONTENTS
WiNNiPESAUKEE, by Eva Beede Odell ...
Summer by the Lakeside, by John Greenleaf Whit-
tier
Evening Song, by Fred Letois Pattee
IV — THE STREAMS
I
E Merrimack, by John Greenleaf Whittier
The Pemigewasset, by Henry David Thoreau
Saco Falls, by James Thomas Fields
Mad RrvER, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Sugar River, by Sarah Josepha Hale
Hills in Mist, by Lucy Larcom .
Saco's Cradle, by David McConnell Smyth
Franconia from the Pemigewasset, by John
Greenleaf Whittier
The Flume, by Harry Hibbard .
The Merrimack, by John Greenleaf Whittier
My Mountain, by Liicy Larcom
March, by John Greenleaf Whittier .
The River Saco, by James Gilbome Lyons
Diana's Baths, by Frederick James Allen
Up the Androscoggin, by Lucy Larcom
My Merrimack, by Litcy Larcom
( XV )
184
185
191
195
198
199
201
205
209
210
211
213
214
215
219
220
222
223
226
CONTENTS
Our River, by John Greenleaf Whiltier , . . 227
Merrimack River at its Source, by Edna Dean
Proctor 229
To Connecticut River, by John Gardiner Cal-
kins Brainard 230
The Old School-House, by Lucy Larcom . . 233
Pemigewasset Cloud-Pictures, by Jeremiah
Fames Rankin 235
The Merrimack River, by Thomas Russell Crosby 237
The White-Throated Sparrow, by James
Thomas Fields 239
Climbing to Rest, by Lucy Larcom . . .241
The Saco, by John Greenleaf Whiltier . . . 242
CoNTOOCOOK River, by Edna Dean Proctor . . 244
The Falls of the Saco, by John Greenleaf Whiltier 248
Revisited, by John Greenleaf Whitlier . . . 249
Connecticut River, by Lydia Huntley Sigourney 251
SoNGO River, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow . 252
V — OUTSPURS
Longing, by Josephine Augusta Cass . . . 257
MoNADNOCK, by Ralph Waldo Emerson . . . 258
The Distant Range, by Lucy Larcom . . . 265
( xvi )
I-
CONTENTS
The Call of the Country, by Frederic Lawrence
Knowles 'iQQ
RuMNEY Hills, by Josiak Moody Fletcher . . 269
An Invitation, by James Thomas Fields . . 271
Mount Morjah from Bethel, by Lucy Larcom . 272
The Village Lights, by Helen Hunt Jackson . 275
Up to the Hills, by Samuel Longfellow . . 277
Kearsarge, by Edna Dean Proctor .... 279
Crow's Nest, by John White Chadmck . . . 282
On the Ledge, by Lucy Larcom .... 283
Monadnock from Wachusett, by John Greenleaf
Whittier 285
The Farewell, by Lucy Larcom .... 286
Return to the Hills, by Helen Hunt Jackson . 287
Thompson's Grove, by Frederick James Allen . 289
Days on Monadnock, by William Ellery Channing 290
The Bells of Bethlehem, by James Thomas
Fields . 291
Monadnock, by John White Chadwick . . . 292
Burns Hill, by Fred Lewis Pattee .... 293
Monadnock in October, by Edna Dean Proctor . 294
From the Hills, by Lucy Larcom .... 296
Mount Pleasant, by Rose Sanborn . . . .297
( xvii )
CONTENTS
Cardigan, hy Fred Lewis Patlee 299
The Strength of the Hills, hy Mary Thacher
Higginson 300
MoNADNOCK, hy William Bourne Oliver Peabody . 301
Mount Agassiz, hy Charlotte Fiske Bates . . 304
Sunrise on the Hills, hy Henry Wadsworth Long-
fellow 305
The Distant Hills, hy Henry David Thoreau . 307
The Hills of Dartmouth, by Richard Hovey . 308
MoNADNOCK FROM Afar, hy Ralph Waldo Emerson 311
Bald-Cap Revisited, hy John White Chadwick . 312
The Presence, by Lucy Larcom 315
The Mountain Maid, by Edna Dean Proctor . . 316
The Uncanoonuc Mountains, hy Sam Walter
Foss 320
Death of Hawthorne, by Annie Fields . . 321
Notes 823
Biographical Index with First Lines . . 373
Index of Titles 391
ILLUSTRATIONS
Bearcamp Water Frontispiece
Adams and Jefferson 8
Mount Webster 14
The Flume in Spring 20
moosilauke 32
Lost River 36
The "Old Man" . . .• 46
\^f Adams and Madison 58
Autumn 74
Chocorua Lake and Mountain .... 80
In a Cloud-Rift 110
A Glimpse of Chocorua 120
From Red Hill 134
Pasquaney 144
The Hill-Top 158
The Whittier Pine 176
Franconia from the Pemigewasset . . . 212
Near Dartmouth 230
( xix )
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Contoocook 244
MoNADNOCK Lake and Mountain .... 258
Near Kearsarge 278
Mount Washington and the Saco . . . 286
Cascade in the Flume 298
Mount Adams 318
INTRODUCTION
In travelling through the Mississippi Valley I
found myself each day in some ambitious city
which boasted that it had something or other
that was the biggest in the world. At last I came
upon a quiet town, a very Rip Van Winkle of a
village, that had evidently been left behind in the
race for superlative greatness. Here, thought I,
I may rest in peace, with no big thing to molest
or make me afraid. But in the evening when I
sat down to write, I saw the challenging letter-
head on the hotel stationery, "This is the big-
gest little hotel in the State."
That is the kind of claim which we who fre-
quent the highlands of New Hampshire make for
our beloved mountains. We admit that they can-
not compete in sheer bulk with the Rockies or the
Sierras. The table of altitudes is not impressive.
Even Mount Washington is not so far above the
sea as some foothills of low degree in Colorado.
But why twit on facts? Why should a mountain
try to get so far above the sea? It is a vulgar am-
bition. What we claim is that ours are the biggest
X xxi )
INTRODUCTION
little mountains in the country. There is an in-
timacy and an individuality about them that wins
our hearts.
As each summer the devotees come back to
worship at their mountain shrines, their devotion
to the particular object of their affection deepens.
After a dozen summers the attachment becomes a
sort of topographical bigotry. Each valley or up-
land has its cult. I belong to the cult of Chocorua.
To those of our way of thinking there is a defect
in every landscape which has not our beloved peak
in the background. We may take you on an after-
noon to a breezy hilltop, or to a lake nestling in
the woods, or to a pool on the Bearcamp Water,
or to a nook in the Ossipee hills, but when we point
out a "view'* you will see Chocorua. It is as in-
evitable as Fujiyama in a Japanese picture. We
feel that this is our mountain and that we have
property rights in it.
And if you have a whole day you can hardly
avoid being personally conducted up our moun-
tain. You may have recently returned from the
Alps, but we will not allow you to make any super-
cilious comparisons. And the chances are that
( xxii )
INTRODUCTION
you will be duly enthusiastic and out of breath
when you reach the summit. Chocorua is not as
big as the Matterhorn, but the principle is the
same. It is every inch a mountain. And you have
actually climbed Chocorua, while you only looked
at the Matterhorn from the hotel. The proof of a
mountain is the climbing it.
Nor will we admit that loftier summits have a
monopoly of the sublime. There are days when the
clouds cling to the shoulders of Chocorua, and the
great granite peak looms above them, seeming to
belong more to heaven than to the earth. The
height is not measured by feet. The mountain be-
comes the symbol of immeasurable greatness.
But there are those who are not of our local cult.
There are blameless dwellers about Moosilauke
who find peace and comfort in the contemplation
of their own mountain. Far be it from us to
bring a railing accusation against them, and their
views. They are doubtless fully persuaded in
their own minds. There are highland clans in the
Franconia region who look daily toward Mount
Lafayette. As for those who frequent the north-
ern peaks of the Presidential Range, they look
( xxiii )
INTRODUCTION
down upon the rest of us as upon mere low-
landers, who know not the joy of the hills.
But these bloodless feuds do not prevent us
from joining in common allegiance to the big lit-
tle mountains of New Hampshire. They are big
enough to awaken in us the sense of freedom, and
little enough to permit a feeling of intimacy.
It was a pleasant thought to bring together the
poems inspired by the White Hills. One loves the
maple orchards, and the pines and the larches and
the granite peaks all the more, because of the poets
who have walked among them. Here Whittier
came, —
To drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Bearcamp Water.
Whittier was not a mountain climber. He never,
like Thomas Starr King, explored the wildernesses.
But he loved to be "Among the Hills." The hills
were around him and above him, bringing peace.
His was the spirit of the Twenty -third Psalm.
With him in appreciation of quiet beauty was his
friend Lucy Larcom. Longfellow writes in praise
of the streams rather than of the rugged symraits.
I am glad that the editor has not treated the White
( xxiv )
INTRODUCTION
Hills as a mere geographical expression, but has
kindly extended the meaning of the term to take
in Monadnock and so to admit Emerson. Monad-
nock, for all his aloofness, is on speaking terms
with the White Hills.
What a pleasant company of poets has been
gathered to celebrate the New England hill coun-
try! Celia Thaxter, who so wonderfully inter-
preted the sea, felt the spell of the mountains also.
Richard Watson Gilder and Helen Hunt and John
Chadwick found here refreshment. One likes to
connect Thoreau with the Pemigewasset. It seems
a fitter stream than the Concord River for a lover
of the unconventional. Among the devotees of the
mountains there was none more genuine than Frank
Bolles, who wrote so charmingly of the wild, shy
things he saw in the woods. We are glad for a bit
of his verse.
But the reader will select his own companions,
those who best interpret his mood. The familiar
scene takes on new beauty when he meets with
those who have been "baptized into the grace and
privilege of seeing.'*
Samuel M. Crothebs.
I
THE HEART OF THE HILLS
... in whose vast shadows live great names.
On whose firm pillars rest mysterious dawns
And sunsets that redream the apocalypse.
Gilder.
I
MOUNTAINEER'S PRAYER
Gird me with the strength of Thy steadfast hills.
The speed of Thy streams give me!
In the spirit that calms, with the life that thrills,
I would stand or run for Thee.
Let me be Thy voice, or Thy silent power,
As the cataract, or the peak, —
An eternal thought, in my earthly hour.
Of the living God to speak!
Clothe me in the rose-tints of Thy skies.
Upon morning summits laid !
Robe me in the purple and gold that flies
Through Thy shuttles of light and shade!
Let me rise and rejoice in Thy smile aright.
As mountains and forests do!
Let me welcome Thy twilight and Thy night.
And wait for Thy dawn anew !
Give me the brook's faith, joyously sung
Under clank of its icy chain!
(3)
MOUNTAINEER'S PRAYER
Give me of the patience that hides among
The hill-tops, in mist and rain!
Lift me up from the clod, let me breathe Thy
breath,
Thy beauty and strength give me!
Let me lose both the name and the meaning of
death,
In the life that I share with Thee!
Lucy Larcom.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
God bless New Hampshire! from her granite
peaks
Once more the voice of Stark and Langdon speaks.
The long-bound vassal of the exulting South
i For very shame her self-forged chain has
broken ;
Torn the black seal of slavery from her mouth,
t And in the clear tones of her old time spoken !
Oh, all undreamed-of, all unhoped-for changes!
The tyrant's ally proves his sternest foe;
To all his biddings, from her mountain ranges,
New Hampshire thunders an indignant No!
Who is it now despairs? Oh, faint of heart,
Look upward to those Northern mountains cold.
Flouted by Freedom's victor-flag unrolled.
And gather strength to bear a manlier part!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
(5 )
EASTER IN THE WHITE HILLS
Hark! where the cliffs are lost in clouds
That float to the Realm of Souls,
"The Lord is risen!" from peak to peak
In rapturous echo rolls!
Through Waumbek's templed land it rings
From Winnipesaukee's side
To far Coos, whose crystal lakes
Dower Androscoggin's tide.
And brim serene Connecticut
Of mount and main the pride.
Agiochook from his altars
To spired Chocorua calls.
And broad Moosilauke sends the cry-
Back from his buttressed walls;
Franconia answers full and clear
With myriad airy voices,
And a glory lights the great Stone-Face
While all the pass rejoices;
And south, the towering sentinels —
Monadnock's lonely fane,
(6)
EASTER IN THE WHITE HILLS
And domed Kearsarge, by Merrimack —
Swell the celestial strain,
Till the sky is filled with the choral notes
Of the jubilant refrain!
I
And lo! the rush and roar of streams
Freed from their icy prison!
Saco to Pemigewasset
Proclaims, "The Lord is risen!*'
"Is risen!" sings Ammonoosuc,
To the meadows foaming down;
"Is risen!" the waking brooks reply,
In the glens yet bare and brown.
The sun comes over Katahdin
With flame for every crest, —
Flame and rose for the stainless snows
That deep on the summits rest;
And peak and cloud in the golden rays
Shine fair as Tabor *s sheen.
When heaven embosomed the lonely hill
And God of man was seen.
Through the sombre firs the west wind sighs
And chants to larch and pine,
( 7 )
EASTER IN THE WHITE HILLS
"The Lord is risen!" till echoes steal
To the forest's inmost shrine.
And list! from the maple boughs a song
The angel choir might heed, —
A wild-wood robin warbling sweet,
"The Lord is risen indeed!"
And thus, with grandest symphonies,
And song the soul that thrills,
Comes Easter, golden, glorious,
To Waumbek*s templed hills.
Edna Dean Proctor,
k
ENTHRALLED
Like huge waves, petrified, against the sky,
The solemn hills are heaved ; by shadow kissed.
Or softly touched by delicate light they lie
Melting in sapphire and in amethyst.
The thronging mountains, crowding all the scene,
Are like the long swell of an angry sea,
Tremendous surging tumult that has been
Smitten to awful silence suddenly.
The nearer slopes with autumn glory blaze.
Garnet and ruby, topaz, amber, gold;
Up through the quiet air the thin smoke strays
From many a lonely homestead, brown and old.
The scattered cattle graze in pastures bare,
The brooks sing unconcerned beside the way.
Belated crickets chirp, while still and fair
Dies into sunset peace the golden day.
And toward the valley, where the little town
( 9 )
ENTHRALLED
Beckons with twinkling lights, that gleam be-
low
Like bright and friendly eyes, we loiter down
And find our shelter and our fireside glow.
But while the gay hours pass with laugh and jest.
And all is radiant warmth and joy once more.
My captured thought must wander out in quest
Of that vast mountain picture, o'er and o'er;
Where underneath the black and star-sown arch
Earth's ancient trouble speaks eternally;
And I must watch those mighty outlines march
In silence, motionless, with none to see;
While from the north the night-wind sighing
sweeps,
And sharp against the crystal sky relieved.
The tumult of forgotten ages sleeps
Where like huge waves the solemn hills are
heaved.
Celia Thaxter.
I
MOUNT WASHINGTON
Across his breast the autumn sunbeams fall.
While up his shaggy side the shadows creep
From foot to crown, — a flock of mountain
sheep
Slow climbing homeward at the shepherd's call.
Scaling with certain foot the jagged wall.
Overleaping gulfs and canons wildly deep
Within whose cells the storm-winged Furies
sleep, —
Until they gather at their starlit stall.
And up the iron trail the genii go.
With sturdy shoulders pushing venturous trains.
While the grim mountain shakes his sides
with glee
To see his faithful vassals toiling so.
At last the clouds engulf them, and it rains;
So great ships vanish in a thunderous sea.
Edward Augustus Jenks.
( 11 )
IN THE CRYSTAL HILLS
From The Bridal of Penacook
We had been wandering for many days
Through the rough northern country. We had
seen
The sunset, with its bars of purple cloud,
Like a new heaven, shine upward from the lake
Of Winnepiseogee; and had felt
The sunrise breezes, midst the leafy isles
Which stoop their summer beauty to the lips
Of the bright waters. We had checked our steeds,
Silent with wonder, where the mountain wall
Is piled to heaven; and, through the narrow rift
Of the vast rocks, against whose rugged feet
Beats the mad torrent with perpetual roar,
Where noonday is as twilight, and the wind
Comes burdened with the everlasting moan
Of forests and of far-off waterfalls.
We had looked upward where the summer sky,
Tasselled with clouds light-woven by the sun,
Sprung its blue arch above the abutting crags
O'er-roofing the vast portal of the land
( 12 )
IN THE CRYSTAL HILLS
Beyond the wall of mountains. We had passed
The high source of the Saco; and bewildered
In the dwarf spruce-belts of the Crystal Hills,
Had heard above us, like a voice in the cloud.
The horn of Fabyan sounding; and atop
Of old Agiochook had seen the mountains
Piled to the northward, shagged with wood, and
thick
As meadow mole-hills, — the far sea of Casco,
A white gleam on the horizon of the east;
Fair lakes, embosomed in the woods and hills;
Moosehillock's mountain range, and Kearsarge
Lifting his granite forehead to the sun!
And we had rested underneath the oaks
Shadowing the bank, whose grassy spires are
shaken
By the perpetual beating of the falls
Of the wild Ammonoosuc. We had tracked
The winding Pemigewasset, overhung
By beechen shadows, whitening down its rocks,
Or lazily gliding through its intervals.
From waving rye-fields sending up the gleam
Of sunlit waters. We had seen the moon
(13)
IN THE CRYSTAL HILLS
Rising behind Umbagog's eastern pines,
Like a great Indian camp-fire; and its beams
At midnight spanning with a bridge of silver
The Merrimack by Uncanoonuc's falls.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
MOUNT WEBSTER
FHOTO BY DETROIT PLBLIsHlNO CO.
And the granite of New Hampshire
Is made part of them till death. — Hovey
MOUNT WEBSTER.
A POWER unmoved, like him of iron will, —
A mighty front of granite, it doth stand
So firm, old time hath wrought it little ill.
And here below, a cloud that fain would rest
In some recess upon the mountain-side.
Two bright cascades come leaping down its breast.
Like rival swains in race before a bride, —
Silver cascade, in wild and laughing leaps.
Bursts forth in beauty o'er the granite gray;
A hallowed light its winding pathway keeps
While prism bloom bedecks its glittering spray!
We feast our eyes from here, they are so plain.
On Webster's breast they hang a silver chain.
David McConnell Smyth.
(15)
FRANCONIA NOTCH
The blackening hills close round: the beetling
cliff
On either hand towers to the upper sky.
I pass the lonely inn; the yawning rift
Grows narrower still, until the passer-by
Beholds himself walled in by mountains high.
Like everlasting barriers, which frown
Around, above, in awful majesty:
Still on, the expanding chasm deepens down.
Into a vast abyss which circling mountains crown.
Harby Hibbard.
(16)
LAKE OF THE CLOUDS
Queen of the clouds! afar from crowds
Thou reignest all alone.
In solitude which few intrude
To bow at thy high throne.
On either hand the mountains grand
Their giant shoulders lift
To bear thee up like God's sweet cup.
Brimmed with his precious gift!
Shrined *mid the haunts of alpine plants
That wreathe thy rocky rim.
Like clustered vines the graver twines
About the beaker's brim.
With what delight I caught the sight-
Of thee I came to seek,
At peace and rest beneath the crest
Of Monroe's splintered peak;
Where naught is heard of beast or bird
Save the lone eagle's cry,
( 17)
LAKE OF THE CLOUDS
Whose lordly flight eludes the sight.
Lost in the deepening sky;
And where no sound disturbs the round
Of thy unruffled sleep,
But bolts that flash and roar and crash
And leap from steep to steep.
O, what an hour to feel His power
Who said, and it was done;
And huge and vast these hills stood fast,
Eternal as the sun!
By thy low brink I knelt to drink
Thy waters clear and cold,
As the last ray that shuts the day
Flushed thy fair face with gold.
Below in light the valley bright
In softened beauty shone.
While o*er me rose in grand repose
The dome of Washington.
The soft green moss I stept across
With wary feet and slow,
(18)
LAKE OP THE CLOUDS
Crept in and out and all about
The shattered rocks below;
And wee bright flowers through sun and showers
Peered out with sparkling eyes,
As in the wild some unkempt child
Looks up in shy surprise.
O lovely lake, for thy sweet sake
The powers of earth and air.
That desolate all else, create
For thee a garden fair.
That 'mid the breath of gloom and death
Seems let down from above
To give us cheer where all is drear.
Like God's abounding love.
*Mid city heats I tread the streets
And think of thee afar.
As of one gone whose love beams on
Like light from some lost star.
O mighty mount, O crystal fount,
O hills and lakes and streams,
( 19)
LAKE OF THE CLOUDS
How dear thou art to all my heart.
How near in all my dreams!
Henry Clay Hendeeson.
THE FLUME IN SPRING
The speed of thy streams give me !
Lucy Larcom
I-
MEN OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
They have the still North in their souls,
The hill-winds in their breath;
And the granite of New Hampshire
Is made part of them till death.
Richard Hovey.
(21)
THE WILLEY SLIDE
From Thk Willey Housb
Two summers now had seared the hills.
Two years of little rain or dew;
High up the courses of the rills
The wild-rose and the raspberry grew;
The mountain sides were cracked and dry.
And frequent fissures on the plain,
Like mouths, gaped open to the sky.
As though the parched earth prayed for rain.
One sultry August afternoon.
Old Willey, looking toward the west.
Said, "We shall hear the thunder soon:
Oh! if it bring us rain, 't is blest."
And even with his word, a smell
Of sprinkled fields passed through the air.
And from a single cloud there fell
A few large drops — the rain was there.
(22)
THE WILLEY SLIDE
Ere set of sun a thunder-stroke
Gave signal to the floods to rise;
Then the great seal of heaven was broke,
Then burst the gates that barred the skies!
While from the west the clouds rolled on,
And from the nor*west gathered fast,
"We'll have enough of rain anon,'*
Said Willey, "if this deluge last."
For all these cliffs that stand sublime
Around, like solemn priests appeared.
Gray Druids of the olden time,
Each with his white and streaming beard.
A sound ! as though a mighty gale
Some forest from its hold had riven.
Mixed with a rattling noise like hail!
God! art Thou raining rocks from heaven?
A flash! O Christ! the lightning showed
The mountain moving from his seat !
(23)
THE WILLEY SLIDE
Out ! out into the slippery road !
Into the wet with naked feet !
For down the mountain's crumbling side.
Full half the mountain from on high
Came sinking, like the snows that slide
From the great Alps about July.
And with it went the lordly ash,
And with it went the kingly pine;
Cedar and oak, amid the crash.
Dropped down like clippings of the vine.
I.*:* • • • • • •
Thomas William Parsons.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Thou art the rough nurse of a hero-brood,
^P New Hampshire, and their mighty limbs by thee
Were fashioned — they, the bards, the warriors
trude.
Whom Time hath dowered with fame imperish-
ably.
But not alone for this I love thee; I
On thy bare mother-breast have laid my head^
And drunk the cool, deep silence, while the sky,
IHp Confederate of my joy, laughed o*er my bed.
Thus have I lain till half I seemed a part —
In my clairvoyant mood — of Nature's plan;
The very landscape crept into my heart.
And they were one — the sense, the soul, of
IK man;
My kinship with life's myriad forms I knew : — '
Worms in the world of green, wings in the world
of blue.
* Copyright, 1904, by Frederic Lawrence Knowles.
(25 )
NEW HAMPSHIRE
II
Nor less I loved thee in those hours of blight
When winter fell upon thee like a sleep;
Again I watch along the drifted white
The dark triangle of the snow-plough sweep.
Behold the oxen draw the creaking sled.
Hear the sharp sleet rehearse upon the pane.
See the wise village prophets shake the head
While through the elms the witless winds com-
plain.
Ah, in those hours, O native hills ! I know
Alert beneath thy guise of seeming dead
The roots are warm, the saps of summer flow.
The wings of immortality are bred!
In all things reigns one immanent Control :
The life beneath the snow, the Life within my
soul!
NEW HAMPSHIRE
III
Then hail, ye hills! like rough-hewn temples set.
With granite beams, upon this earth of God!
Austerer halls of worship never yet
Had feet of Puritan or Pilgrim trod:
Abrupt Chocorua, Greylock's hoary height,
Katahdin, with her peak of bare, scarred stone.
Sloping Monadnock, and, in loftier flight.
Thou, rising to the eternal heavens, alone —
The Sun-wooed sisters, less divinely proud.
Bribed to compliance by their suitor's gold —
Thou, wrapt in thy stern drapery of a cloud,
Chaste, passionless, inviolably cold.
Mount Washington! sky-shouldering, freedom-
crowned.
Compatriot with the windy blue above, around !
Frederic Lawrence Knowles.
ON THE MOUNTAIN
Not in the happy meadows, fair bedight
With wreathed flowers, and set in golden ease.
Where laugh bright waters under whispering
trees,
The soul of man puts on its purer sight.
But far above, upon the stormy height.
Set round with lightnings, torn by storm and
breeze.
Where the tired climber falls on trembling
knees.
His soul doth win the vision of delight!
O blessing by Divinest Mercy sent
To soothe the hurt of weariness and toil.
Strike in our hearts great Patience' mighty
chord !
That howsoe'er with strain of effort spent.
Through sweat of brow and stain of earthly soil,
We yet may rise to glory of the Lord !
Mary Euzabeth Blake.
(28)
MOUNT AGIOCHOOK
Gray searcher of the upper air.
There 's sunshine on thy ancient walls,
A crown upon thy forehead bare,
A flash upon thy waterfalls,
A rainbow glory in the cloud
Upon thine awful summit bowed.
The radiant ghost of a dead storm!
And music from the leafy shroud
Which swathes in green thy giant form,
Mellowed and softened from above
Steals downward to the lowland ear,
Sweet as the first, fond dream of love.
That melts upon the maiden's ear.
The wigw^am fires have all burned out.
The moccasin has left no track;
Nor wolf nor panther roam about
The Saco and the Merrimack.
And thou, that liftest up on high
Thy mighty barriers to the sky,
Art not the haunted mount of old.
Where on each crag of blasted stone
(29)
MOUNT AGIOCHOOK
Some dreadful spirit found his throne.
And hid within the thick cloud fold.
Heard only in the thunder's crash.
Seen only in the lightning's flash,
When crumbled rock and riven branch
Went down before the avalanche!
John Greenleaf Whittiee.
GARFIELD'S BURIAL-DAY
The great New England mountains, the tallest of
their clan,
Stood purple-robed around us; the presence of a
man —
The man we mourned — loomed vaster than any
loftiest peak
Uprising from the lowlands unclouded light to
seek.
Yet see, where far above us, a life escaped its
shroud.
Yon pale, scarred summit rises out of a sunset-
cloud
Woven of snow and crimson! and proudly, lightly
now
The new moon hangs her crescent on that trans-
figured brow!
Our martyr, crowned with honor, we saw uplifted
stand.
His monument his manhood, the glory of the
land.
(31 )
GARFIELD'S BURIAL-DAY
Are not great men as mountains, that in them-
selves aspire
From their own baser levels toward heaven's bap-
tismal fire?
"Men should be more than mountains in gran-
deur — and they are ! '*
We said, as gazing downward around us, near and
far.
We saw a world of summits touched with that
sunset flame.
And greeted, high among them, the peak that
bears his name.
We cried, "Look up, dear country! ah, lift thee,
widowed brow!
As he has borne the earthly, he wears the heavenly
now!
The cruel blow that pierced him has raised him to
the sky;
Behold the starry manhood that lives, and cannot
die!"
Lucy Larcom.
MOOSTLAUKE
•IKJIU ur KIMBALL, co>,ui.i.
Lone peak ! what realms are thine, above , below !
Edna Deao Proctor
MOOSILAUKE
Moosilauke! mountain sagamore! thy brow
The wide hill-splendor circles. Not a peer,
Among New Hampshire's lordly heights that fear
Nor summer's bolt nor winter's blast, hast thou
For grand horizons. Lo, to westward now
Towers Whiteface over Killington; and clear.
To north, Mount Royal cleaves the blue; while
near,
Franconia's, Conway's peaks the east endow
With glorj% round great Washington whose cone
Of sunset shade, athwart his valleys thrown.
Darkens and stills a hundred miles of Maine!
To south the bright Lake smiles, and rivers flow
Through elm-fringed meadows to the ocean
plain, —
Lone peak! what realms are thine, above, below!
Edna Dean Proctor.
(33)
THE GRANITE STATE
When Summer's royal robe of evergreen
Upon New Hampshire's hills mine eyes have seen,
When all her vales with Flora's colors vie,
And morning's gold fills all the eastern sky,
How proud am I to own my chosen home.
Here gladly bide, nor longer wish to roam;
My tower of strength, Mount Washington afar;
My mirror, yonder lake; my light, the evening
star!
George Bancroft Griffith.
(34)
THE WHITE HILLS
Thy varied scenes blend grace, my native land,
With grandeur; here the tranquil lake,
I^P And there the roaring torrent, — streams that
break.
Impetuous rushing, from thy mountain strand,
With headlong force that scoops the yielding sand
l^k And wears down granite. Lo! where towering
high,
His shoulders mantled with yon swelling cloud.
Whence lightnings flash, and thunders roar aloud.
Mount Washington ascends his native sky!
Armed with the avalanche, he sweeps afar
Man and his works, — his caverns stored with
snow.
Coeval with the rock. Like some lone star
Above the storm he looks on earth below.
Serene in silence, from his throne on high.
William Plumeb.
(35)
AT THE FLUME HOUSE
White clouds a-sail in the shining blue,
With shadows dropt to dredge the lands,
A mountain wind and a marching storm.
And a sound in the trees like waves on the sands;
A mist to soften the shaggy side
Of the great green hills, till they lie as dim
As the hills in a childhood memory.
The back of an upland pasture steep.
With delicate fern-beds notching wide
The dark wood line, where the birches keep
Candlemas all the summer-tide;
The crags and the ledges, silver-chased.
Where yesterday's rainy runlets raced;
And watching his valley, the Profile grim.
And a golden sunset watching him.
William Channing Gannett.
(36)
LOST RIVER
The rivers of God are full of water
Whittier
LOOKING DOWN
Dear World, on the peak we miss something, —
I the sweet multitudinous sound
Of leaves in the forest a-flutter, of rivulets lisping
around;
The smell of wild pastures in blossom, of fresh
p earth upturned by the plough; —
But the fields and woods led us hither; half-way
they are following now.
I
One world — there is no separation — the same
earth above and below;
p here is the river's cloud-cradle, down there is
its fulness and flow.
My voice joins the voice of your millions who up-
ward in weariness grope,
nd the hills bear the burden to heaven, — human-
ity's anguish and hope!
Lucy Larcom.
(37)
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT LAFAY-
ETTE
The mountains loose their locks from misty brows.
And comb them by the lambent bars of gold
Escaping through successive slants of boughs'.
Swarth tresses are breeze-wafted from the face
Of one unrivalled, with the wondrous eyes —
Those searching eyes deep in his granite face.
Those eyes unmelting yet mid sun and storm
Of centuries, or triumphing in peace.
Or steadfast above strife and tribal wars.*
The cool recesses 'neath these clasping trees
Have sheltered many a redman. Shielding rocks
Have trembled to the feet of lordly beast,
Ere yet the mightier tread of slow-paced Time
Left imprint in the lessons of the ledge.
In 'sweet uncertainty we climb the steeps,
Our pathway unimpressed by frequent feet,
Tingeing the way with romance of a doubt
If we attain the half-illusive height.
Nor did the seer so yearn for promised land
As we for such a paradise withheld.
(38)
r
THE ASCENT OF MOUNT LAFAYETTE
But soon the favoring breezes broke apart
The long defile of living green, wherethrough
Shimmers the sunlit affluence of plains.
Rivers and fragmentary lakes and meads.
" And every momentarj^ heaven succeeds
In making earth less arduous, as we seek
To gain its goal.
The music of a fount
Falls in resistless coolness o'er the way;
Our hope renewed by draught miraculous.
We wander on, each step one nearer heaven.
Doth it not picture clear the path of life
To world-worn pilgrims, and the blest reward?
Surely if aught on earth foreshadow heaven.
Behold it, while on every side, — the skies.
The vales, the dusky way we trod are new.
Re-glorified to our unbounded sight —
Our sight — so long expectant — satisfied !
Fanny Runnells Poole.
SUNSET ON MOUNT WASHINGTON
The golden arrows cleave thy snowy crown,
While thy dark vestments take a deeper brown.
The twilight watchers watch each darkening zone,
And bolder grown, usurp the sunlight's throne.
Blow, west wind, blow ! ay, set the wild news flying:
"The reign of day is o'er — its king is dying!'*
The sun, a broken circle, half concealed,
Sinks 'neath the glimmer of a golden field;
A shining halo on the azure space
Fast flees beyond the walls of light and place.
Moan, east wind, moan ! ay, set the wild news fly-
ing:
"The reign of day is o'er — its king is dying!"
A crumbling castle 'cross the shadowy lands
Against the sky now silhouetted stands;
A bar of bronze and silver at its door
Now falls the wan day's purple threshold o'er.
Sigh, south wind, sigh! ay, set the wild news fly-
ing:
"The reign of day is o'er — its king is dying!"
(40)
SUNSET ON MOUNT WASHINGTON
I
The dusky legions leap o*er castled wall.
O'er ramparts frowning high, o'er sky, and all;
The long light from thy hoary summit flees
Like spirit hosts across the forest seas.
Shriek, north wind, shriek! ay, set the wild news
flying:
"The king is dying!" Echo answers, "dying!'*
The twilight hangs a curtain day and night
Between. Afar and near the stars in might
Begin their watch, while Venus sets on high
Her home-light in the window of the sky.
Swift winged winds abroad the news have
spread :
"The day is done — its king is dying — dead!"
George Waldo Browne.
THE PROFILE
In thee the simple-minded Indian saw
The image of his more benignant God,
And viewed with deep and reverential awe
The spot where the Great Spirit made abode;
When storms obscured thee, and red lightnings
glowed
From the dark clouds oft gathered round thy
face.
He saw thy form in anger veiled, nor rowed
His birchen bark, nor sought the wild deer chase
Till thy dark frown had passed, and sunshine filled
its place.
Harry Hibbard.
( 42 )
MOUNT LIBERTY
O Liberty, that standest high.
Lifting thy head into the sky.
Majestic in thy symmetry,
No type more perfect could there be.
For, Liberty, thy sides are scarred,
By reckless greed thy visage marred;
In fury flames have o'er thee swept.
While men have fought and angels wept.
To reach thy noble height sublime
Man slowly toils from time to time;
The path is rough or steep or dim.
The goal as yet concealed from him.
But in those loftier realms of air
The summit shines divinely fair,
A rock unchanged through ages long.
Resisting nature's forces strong.
(43)-
MOUNT LIBERTY
Free here is movement, free the sight.
The air is free, and free the light;
Free thoughts ascend to God above:
Liberty's atmosphere is love.
Karl Pomeroy Harrington.
NOOK NEAR LAFAYETTE
So clear, it seems but air just tinged with green,
This lovely pool that rims the mountain's bowl;
So still that Echo, haunting this fair scene,
^May catch the music of some passing soul !
George Bancroft Griffith,
(45)
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
All round the lake the wet woods shake
From drooping boughs their showers of pearl;
From floating skiff to towering cliff
The rising vapors part and curl.
The west wind stirs among the firs
High up the mountain side emerging;
The light illumes a thousand plumes
Through billowy banners round them surging.
A glory smites the craggy heights;
And in a halo of the haze,
Flushed with faint gold, far up, behold
That mighty face, that stony gaze!
In the wild sky upborne so high
Above us perishable creatures.
Confronting Time with those sublime,
Impassive, adamantine features.
Thou beaked and bald high front, miscalled
The profile of a human face !
No kin art thou, O Titan brow,
To puny man's ephemeral race.
( 46 )
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
The groaning earth to thee gave birth.
Throes and convulsions of the planet;
Lonely uprose, in grand repose.
Those eighty feet of facial granite.
Here long, while vast, slow ages passed,
Thine eyes (if eyes be thine) beheld
But solitudes of crags and woods,
Where eagles screamed and panthers yelled.
Before the fires of our pale sires
In the first log-built cabin twinkled.
Or red men came for fish and game,
That scalp was scarred, that face was wrinkled.
We may not know how long ago
That ancient countenance was young;
Thy sovereign brow was seamed as now
When Moses wrote and Homer sung.
Empires and states it antedates.
And wars, and arts, and crime, and glory;
In that dim morn when Christ was born
Thy head with centuries was hoary.
Thou lonely one! nor frost, nor sun,
Nor tempest leaves on thee its trace;
(47)
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
The stormy years are but as tears
That pass from thy unchanging face.
With unconcern as grand and stern,
Those features viewed, which now survey us,
A green world rise from seas of ice.
And order come from mud and chaos.
Canst thou not tell what then befell?
What forces moved, or fast or slow;
How grew the hills ; what heats, what chills,
What strange, dim life, so long ago?
High-visaged peak, wilt thou not speak?
One word, for all our learned wrangle!
What earthquakes shaped, what glaciers scraped,
That nose, and gave the chin its angle?
Our pygmy thought to thee is naught,
Our petty questionings are vain;
In its great trance thy countenance
Knows not compassion nor disdain.
With far-off hum we go and come.
The gay, the grave, the busy-idle;
And all things done to thee are one.
Alike the burial and the bridal.
( 48)
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
f
^K Thy permanence, long ages hence,
^m Will mock the pride of mortals still.
^B Returning springs, with songs and wings
^B And fragrance, shall these valleys fill;
^K And free winds blow, fall rain or snow,
^B The mountains brim their crystal beakers;
^m Still come and go, still ebb and flow,
^^^^ The summer tides of pleasure-seekers:
^^^^The dawns shall gild the peaks where build
^ The eagles, many a future pair;
The gray scud lag on wood and crag.
Dissolving in the purple air;
The sunlight gleam on lake and stream.
Boughs wave, storms break, and still at even
All glorious hues the world suffuse.
Heaven mantle earth, earth melt in heaven!
Nations shall pass like summer's grass.
And times unborn grow old and change;
New governments and great events
Shall rise, and science new and strange;
Yet will thy gaze confront the days
With its eternal calm and patience,
(49)
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
The evening red still light thy head,
Above thee burn the constellations.
0 silent speech, that well can teach
The little worth of words or fame !
1 go my way, but thou wilt stay
While future millions pass the same:
But what is this I seem to miss?
Those features fall into confusion!
A further pace — where was that face?
The veriest fugitive illusion !
Gray eidolon! so quickly gone,
When eyes, that make thee, onward move;
Whose vast pretence of permanence
A little progress can disprove!
Like some huge wraith of human faith
That to the mind takes form and measure;
Grim monolith of creed or myth.
Outlined against the eternal azure!
O Titan, how dislimned art thou!
A withered cliff is all we see;
( 50 )
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
That giant nose, that grand repose,
Have in a moment ceased to be;
Or still depend on lines that blend.
On merging shapes, and sight, and distance.
And in the mind alone can find
Imaginary brief existence !
John Townsend Trowbridge.
PEABODY GLEN
My way in opening dawn I took.
Between the hills, beside a brook,
The peaks one sun was climbing o'er, —
The dew-drops showed ten millions more.
The mountain valley is a vase
Which God has brimmed with rarest grace,
And, kneeling in the taintless air,
I drink celestial blessings there.
William Rounseville Algeb.
(52)
IN A CLOUD RIFT
Upon our loftiest White Mountain peak.
Filled with the freshness of untainted air,
We sat, nor cared to listen or to speak
To one another, for the silence there
W^as eloquent with God's presence. Not a sound
Uttered the winds in their unhindered sweep
Above us through the heavens. The gulf pro-
found.
Below us, seethed with mists, a sullen deep:
From thawless ice-caves of a vast ravine
Rolled sheeted clouds across the lands unseen.
How far away seemed all that we had known
In homely levels of the earth beneath.
Where still our thoughts went wandering! "Turn
IH thee!" Blown
^ Apart before us, a dissolving wreath
Of clouds framed in a picture on the air:
IB The fair long Saco valley, whence we came;
The hills and lakes of Ossipee; — and there
L Glimmers the sea! Some pleasant, well-known
name
IN A CLOUD RIFT
With every break to memory hastens back; —
Monadnock, Winnipesaukee, Merrimack.
On widening vistas broader rifts unfold;
Far off into the waters of Champlain
Great sunset-summits dip their flaming gold;
There winds the dim Connecticut, a vein
Of silver through aerial green; and here
The upland street of rural Bethlehem;
And there the roofs of Bethel. Azure-clear
Shimmers the Androscoggin; like a gem
Umbagog glistens; and Katahdin gleams; —
Or is it some dim mountain of our dreams?
Our own familiar world, not yet half known,
Nor loved enough, in tints of Paradise
Lies there before us, now so lovely grown
We wonder what strange film was on our eyes
Ere we climbed hither. But again the cloud.
Descending, shuts the beauteous vision out;
Between us the abysses spread their shroud;
We are to earth, as earth to us, a doubt;
Dear home-folk, skyward seeking us, can see
No crest or crag where pilgrim feet may be.
(54 )
IN A CLOUD RIFT
Who whispered unto us of life and death,
As silence closed upon our hearts once more?
On heights where angels sit, p)erhaps a breath
May clear the separating gulfs; a door
May open sometimes betwixt earth and heaven.
And life's most haunting mystery be shown
A fog-drift of the mind, scattered and driven
Before the winds of God; no vague unknown
Death's dreaded path, — only a curtained stair;
And heaven but earth raised into purer air.
Lucy Larcom.
THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
Son of the tempest and the earthquake's jars,
From out the womb of Chaos wast thou born.
When the first sunrise from the gates of morn
Stepped forth celestial and drew back the bars
Of darkness, and the timorous little stars
Shrank back with Night their mother. Thou hast
worn
Millenniums as jewels, and the scars
Gray Time has scratched upon thee but adorn
That pregnant brow with more than kingly grace.
Man's life-tide ebbs and iflows as flows the sea:
But thy stout soul, as from thy heavenward place
Thou lookest out upon eternity,
Of passion or of care betrays no trace.
Crowned with a radiant immortality.
Charles Fletcher Lummis.
(56 )
KEEP THE FORESTS!
O LONE Waumbek Methna! Who dares to pro-
l^b fane
Thy sohtudes, sacred to Manitou's reign?
Thy peaks rosy-flushed with the last beam of day,
Or lost in the stars, white and stainless as they?-
Thy woods in whose dimness the bright streams
are born.
And the loud winds are lulled till the breaking of
mom? —
The sagamore turned from thy borders in dread.
Afraid the high trails of the hill-gods to tread,
Lest in flood, or in flame leaping vengeful, their ire
Made the black pool his grave, the bleak summit
his pyre.
He saw their weird forms as the clouds floated past ;
He heard their dark words in the wail of the blast ;
Their arrows the lightnings, their drumbeats the
thunder
That rolled till the mountains seemed rending
asunder;
And hunter and warrior stole valeward to shun
Agiochook lifting his brow to the sun.
( 57 )
KEEP THE FORESTS!
What! Pemigewasset glide pale to his tryst
With Winnipesaukee — his waning tide kissed
No more by the shadows that droop and entwine
Of the birch and the maple, the beech and the
pine,
The firs whose battalions so slender and tall
Guard the gloom of the gorge and the flash of the
fall?
What! Merrimack's might left to languish and
fail.
While Penaeook's meadows their verdure bewail;
While the mill-wheels are moveless, the flying
looms still.
For the proud stream no longer his channels can
fill? —
But, shorn of his forests, bereft of his springs.
Forlorn as an eagle despoiled of its wings.
Now grieving by rapids, now moaning by lea,
Deserted, he creeps to the scorn of the sea!
What! swift Ammonoosuc, the foam-wreath, the
bride
Of lordly Connecticut, faint at his side.
While his lakes, wood-embosomed, and pure as his
snows,
( 58 )
KEEP THE FORESTS!
I
Are ravaged, and robbed of their sylvan repose?
What ! Saco forsake his loved intervales, spent
Ere the brooks of the lowlands their tributes have
sent.
While eastward and westward the gray ledges rise
All treeless and springless confronting the skies,
And Moosilauke, Pequawket, Chocorua, frown,
As sad on the bare river- vales they look down?
By the bounty and grandeur of river and steep,
What the Red Man has hallowed the White Man
must keep ! —
Must pause with the hill-roving hunter, and ken
The mighty ones guarding the cliff and the glen.
No gold-seeking vandal shall ruthless invade
The temple whose stones were to Manitou laid;
Shall quench the clear springs and leave desert
and bare
The slopes and the valleys the gods have made
fair!
O peerless New Hampshire! awake from thy
dreams !
Save the wealth of thy woodlands, the rush of thy
streams,
(59)
KEEP THE FORESTS!
The wild mountain splendor — the torrent, the
pine —
Thy groves and thy meadows, thy shade and thy
shine !
For, part with the forest, the bright, brimming
river,
And thy strength and thy glory will vanish for-
ever,
And in wide desolation and ruin will fall
Great Manitou's vengeance, thy soul to appall ! —
Away with this folly, this madness, this shame!
Be true to thy birthright, thy future, thy fame!
And vow, by thy grandeurs of river and steep,
What the Red Man has hallowed the White Man
will keep!
Edna Dean Proctor.
THE SUMMIT-FLOWER
Too close these giant hills their heads uprear;
From peak to base the unswerving outlines
sweep
In awful curves; I follow them with fear:
They bear me down to yon abysmal deep,
Where storm-wind and black cloud for mastery
fight,
And toss me, as their plaything, on the air;
The mountains crush me with their savage might ;
Nature's rude strength is more than I can bear.
0 little white flower on the summit born.
How tenderly you look into my eyes !
Not for a moment do you feel forlorn
Among these grandeurs and immensities.
Vague, formless forces they; a life are you!
My next of kin, and dear as near to me.
You whisper in my ear a promise true,
A faint, clear hint of immortality.
1 touch your leaf with reverence, little flower!
I think of spiritual heights beyond your ken,
(61 )
THE SUMMIT-FLOWER
Where mightier movements of invisible power
Mould into God-like grace the lives of men.
I gather courage, while I watch you here,
Winning from elements fierce your happy
breath,
To root my hopes in mystery and fear,
And find my life in that which seems my death.
Lucy Larcom.
SUNSET ON PROFILE LAKE
I
B The westward sun has left a wake of flame
Wk Across the silent lake, upon whose breast
H The stern, still Face, by wrathful tempests scarred,
B Looks down impassive from the cliffs that frame
H The crystal waters as they lie at rest,
B Secure and trustful in his sleepless guard.
B The regal trout, bestarred with gold and red,
" Shoots headlong high above his native tide
In pure excess of joy, to greet the sun
; Ere yet he seeks his far Pacific bed;
And from the copses on the mountain-side
The rabbit leaps, a living streak of dun.
Up)on the Old Man's brow one lingering ray
Still clings caressingly, as if God's hand
In radiant benediction rested there;
And on the breezes' eddying currents. Day
Drifts out beyond the dim horizon strand,
And Night swims softly down the purple air.
Charles Fletcher Lummi^.
(63 )
IN THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
Mountains in whose vast shadows live great
names,
On whose firm pillars rest mysterious dawns,
And sunsets that redream the apocalypse;
A world of billowing green that, veil on veil,
Turns a blue mist and melts in lucent skies;
A silent world, save for slow waves of wind,
Or sudden, hollow clamor of huge rocks
Beaten by valleyed waters manifold; —
Airs that to breathe is life and joyousness;
Days dying into music; nights whose stars
Shine near, and large, and lustrous; these, O
these,
These are for memory to life's ending hour.
Richard Watson Gilder.
(64)
i
I
THE HILLS ARE HOME
Forget New Hampshire? By her cliflFs, her
meads, her brooks afoam,
With love and pride where'er we bide, the Hills,
the Hills are Home !
On Mississippi or by Nile, Ohio, Volga, Rhine,
We see our cloud-born Merrimack adown its
valley shine;
And Contoocook, Singing Water, Monadnock's
drifts have fed,
With lilt and rhyme and fall and chime flash o'er
its pebbly bed;
And by Como's wave, yet fairer still, our Winni-
pesaukee spread.
Alp nor Sierra, nor the chains of India or Peru,
Can dwarf for us the white-robed heights our won-
dering childhood knew —
The awful Notch, and the great Stone-Face, and
the Lake where the echoes fly.
And the sovereign dome of Washington throned
in the eastern sky; —
( 65 )
THE HILLS ARE HOME
For from Colorado's Snowy Range to the crest of
the Pyrenees
New Hampshire's mountains grandest lift their
peaks in the airy seas.
And the winds of half the world are theirs across
the main and the leas.
Yet far beyond her hills and streams New Hamp-
shire dear we hold:
A thousand tender memories our glowing hearts
enfold;
For in dreams we see the early home by the elms
or the maples tall,
The orchard-trees where the robins built, and the
well by the garden wall;
The lilacs and the apple-blooms make paradise of
May,
And up from the clover-meadows floats the
breath of the new-mown hay;
And the Sabbath bells, as the light breeze swells,
ring clear and die away.
And oh, the Lost Ones live again in love's im-
mortal year!
(66)
THE HILLS ARE HOME
We are children still by the hearth-fire's blaze
while night steals cold and drear ;
Our mother's fond caress we win, our father's
smile of pride.
And, "Now I lay me down to sleep," say, rever-
ent, at their side.
Alas! alas! their graves are green, or white with a
pall of snow.
But we see them yet by the evening hearth as in
the long ago.
And the quiet churchyard where they rest is the
holiest spot we know.
Forget New Hampshire? Let Kearsarge forget
to greet the sun;
Connecticut forsake the sea; the Shoals their
breakers shun;
But fervently, while life shall last, though wide
our ways decline.
Back to the Mountain-Land our hearts will turn
as to a shrine !
Forget New Hampshire.'^ By her cliffs, her meads,
her brooks afoam,
(67)
THE HILLS ARE HOME
By all her hallowed memories, — our lode-star
while we roam, —
Whatever skies above us rise, the Hills, the Hills
are Home!
Edna Dean Proctor.
ASLEEP ON THE SUMMIT
Upon the mountain's stormy breast
I laid me down and sank to rest;
I felt the wild thrill of the blast.
Defied and welcomed as it passed,
And made my lullaby the psalm
Of strife that wins immortal calm.
Cradled and rocked by wind and cloud,
Safe pillowed on the summit proud.
Steadied by that encircling arm
Which holds the universe fyom harm,
I knew the Lord my soul would keep.
Among His mountain-tops asleep.
Lucy Larcom.
(69)
II
THE BEARCAMP COUNTRY
The flowers will blow, the rivers flow.
When I no more return.
Whittieb.
■
AMONG THE HILLS
PRELUDE
Along the roadside, like the flowers of gold
That tawny Incas for their gardens wrought.
Heavy with sunshine droops the golden-rod.
And the red pennons of the cardinal-flowers
Hang motionless upon their upright staves.
The sky is hot and hazy, and the wind.
Wing-weary with its long flight from the south,
Unfelt; yet, closely scanned, yon maple leaf
With faintest motion, as one stirs in dreams.
Confesses it. The locust by the wall
Stabs the noon-silence with his sharp alarm.
A single hay-cart down the dusty road
Creaks slowly, with its driver fast asleep
On the load's top. Against the neighboring hill.
Huddled along the stone wall's shady side.
The sheep show white, as if a snowdrift still
Defied the dog-star. Through the open door
A drowsy smell of flowers — gray heliotrope.
And white sweet clover, and shy mignonette —
Comes faintly in, and silent chorus lends
To the pervading symphony of peace.
(73 )
AMONG THE HILLS
No time is this for hands long overworn
To task their strength : and (unto Him be praise
Who giveth quietness !) the stress and strain
Of years that did the work of centuries
Have ceased, and we can draw our breath once
more
Freely and full. So, as yon harvesters
Make glad their nooning underneath the elms
With tale and riddle and old snatch of song,
I lay aside grave themes, and idly turn
The leaves of memory's sketch-book, dreaming
o'er
Old summer pictures of the quiet hills.
And human life, as quiet, at their feet.
And yet not idly all. A farmer's son.
Proud of field-lore and harvest craft, and feeling
All their fine possibilities, how rich
And restful even poverty and toil
Become when beauty, harmony, and love
Sit at their humble hearth as angels sat
At evening in the patriarch's tent, when man
Makes labor noble, and his farmer's frock
The symbol of a Christian chivalry
( 74 )
■^'
AMONG THE HILLS
Tender and just and generous to her
Who clothes with grace all duty; still, I know
Too well the picture has another side, —
How wearily the grind of toil goes on
Where love is wanting, how the eye and ear
And heart are starved amidst the plenitude
Of nature, and how hard and colorless
Is life without an atmosphere. I look
_ cross the lapse of half a century.
And call to mind old homesteads, where no flower
Told that the spring had come, but evil weeds.
Nightshade and rough-leaved burdock in the place
Of the sweet doorway greeting of the rose
I And honeysuckle, where the house walls seemed
' Blistering in sun, without a tree or vine
To cast the tremulous shadow of its leaves
Across the curtainless windows, from whose panes
Fluttered the signal rags of shiftlessness.
Within, the cluttered kitchen-floor, unwashed
(Broom-clean I think they called it) ; the best
IB room
Stifling with cellar-damp, shut from the air
In hot midsummer, bookless, pictureless
Save the inevitable sampler hung
(75 )
AMONG THE HILLS
Over the fireplace, or a mourning piece,
A green-haired woman, peony-cheeked, beneath
Impossible willows; the wide-throated hearth
Bristling with faded pine-boughs half concealing
The piled-up rubbish at the chimney's back;
And, in sad keeping with all things about them.
Shrill, querulous women, sour and sullen men,
Untidy, loveless, old before their time.
With scarce a human interest save their own
Monotonous round of small economies.
Or the poor scandal of the neighborhood;
Blind to the beauty everywhere revealed.
Treading the May-flowers with regardless feet;
For them the song-sparrow and the bobolink
Sang not, nor winds made music in the leaves;
For them in vain October's holocaust
Burned, gold and crimson, over all the hills,
The sacramental mystery of the woods.
Church-goers, fearful of the unseen Powers,
But grumbling over pulpit-tax and pew-rent.
Saving, as shrewd economists, their souls
And winter p)ork with the least possible outlay
Of salt and sanctity; in daily life
Showing as little actual comprehension
( 76)
AMONG THE HILLS
Of Christian charity and love and duty.
As if the Sermon on the Mount had been
Outdated like a last year's almanac :
Rich in broad woodlands and in half-tilled fields.
And yet so pinched and bare and comfortless,
The veriest straggler limping on his rounds.
The sun and air his sole inheritance,
Laughed at a poverty that paid its taxes,
And hugged his rags in self-complacency !
Not such should be the homesteads of a land
Where whoso wisely wills and acts may dwell
As king and lawgiver, in broad-acred state.
With beauty, art, taste, culture, books, to make
His hour of leisure richer than a life
Of fourscore to the barons of old time;
Our yeoman should be equal to his home
Set in the fair, green valleys, purple walled,
A man to match his mountains, not to creep
Dwarfed and abased below them. I would fain
In this light way (of which I needs must own
With the knife-grinder of whom Canning sings,
"Story, God bless you! I have none to tell you!'*)
Invite the eye to see and heart to feel
(77 )
AMONG THE HILLS
The beauty and the joy within their reach, —
Home, and home loves, and the beatitudes
Of nature free to all. Haply in years
That wait to take the places of our own,
Heard where some breezy balcony looks down
On happy homes, or where the lake in the moon
Sleeps dreaming of the mountains, fair as Ruth,
In the old Hebrew pastoral, at the feet
Of Boaz, even this simple lay of mine
May ^eem the burden of a prophecy.
Finding its late fulfilment in a change
Slow as the oak's growth, lifting manhood up
Through broader culture, finer manners, love,
And reverence, to the level of the hills.
O Golden Age, whose light is of the dawn.
And not of sunset, forward, not behind.
Flood the new heavens and earth, and with thee
bring
All the old virtues, whatsoever things
Are pure and honest and of good report.
But add thereto whatever bard has sung
Or seer has told of when in trance or dream
They saw the Happy Isles of prophecy!
(78)
AMONG THE HILLS
Let Justice hold her scale, and Truth divide
Between the right and wrong; but give the heart
The freedom of its fair inheritance;
Let the poor prisoner, cramped and starved so
long.
At Nature's table feast his ear and eye
With joy and wonder; let all harmonies
Of sound, form, color, motion, wait upon
The princely guest, whether in soft attire
Of leisure clad, or the coarse frock of toil.
And, lending life to the dead form of faith.
Give human nature reverence for the sake
Of One who bore it, making it divine
With the inefiFable tenderness of God;
Let common need, the brotherhood of prayer.
The heirship of an unknown destiny.
The unsolved mystery round about us, make
A man more precious than the gold of Ophir.
Sacred, inviolate, unto whom all things
Should minister, as outward types and signs
Of the eternal beauty which fulfils
The one great purpose of creation. Love,
The sole necessity of Earth and Heaven!
( 79)
AMONG THE HILLS
For weeks the clouds had raked the hills
And vexed the vales with raining,
And all the woods were sad with mist.
And all the brooks complaining.
At last, a sudden night-storm tore
The mountain veils asunder.
And swept the valleys clean before
The besom of the thunder.
Through Sandwich notch the west-wind sang
Good morrow to the cotter;
And once again Chocorua's horn
Of shadow pierced the water.
Above his broad lake Ossipee,
Once more the sunshine wearing.
Stooped, tracing on that silver shield
His grim armorial bearing.
Clear drawn against the hard blue sky.
The peaks had winter's keenness;
And, close on autumn's frost, the vales
Had more than June's fresh greenness.
(80)
AMONG THE HILLS
Again the sodden forest floors
With golden lights were checkered.
Once more rejoicing leaves in wind
And sunshine danced and flickered.
It was as if the summer's late
Atoning for its sadness
Had borrowed every season's charm
To end its days in gladness.
I call to mind those banded vales
Of shadow and of shining.
Through which, my hostess at my side,
I drove in day's declining.
We held our sideling way above
The river's whitening shallows,
By homesteads old, with wide-flung barns
Swept through and through by swallows;
By maple orchards, belts of pine
And larches climbing darkly
The mountain slopes, and, over all,
The great peaks rising starkly.
(81 )
AMONG THE HILLS
You should have seen that long hill-range
With gaps of brightness riven, —
How through each pass and hollow streamed
The purpling lights of heaven, —
Rivers of gold-mist flowing down
From far celestial fountains, —
The great sun flaming through the rifts
Beyond the wall of mountains !
We paused at last where home-bound cows
Brought down the pasture's treasure,
And in the barn the rhythmic flails
Beat out a harvest measure.
We heard the night-hawk's sullen plunge.
The crow his tree-mates calling:
The shadows lengthening down the slopes
About our feet were falling.
And through them smote the level sun
In broken lines of splendor.
Touched the gray rocks and made the green
Of the shorn grass more tender.
(82)
AMONG THE HILLS
The maples bending o*er the gate.
Their arch of leaves just tinted
With yellow warmth, the golden glow
Of coming autumn hinted.
Keen white between the farm-house showed.
And smiled on porch and trellis.
The fair democracy of flowers
That equals cot and palace.
And weaving garlands for her dog,
*Twixt chidings and caresses,
A human flower of childhood shook
The sunshine from her tresses.
On either hand we saw the signs
Of fancy and of shrewdness,
Where taste had wound its arms of vines
Round thrift's uncomely rudeness.
The sun-brown farmer in his frock
Shook hands, and called to Mary :
Bare-armed, as Juno might, she came,
White-aproned from her dairy.
( 83 )
AMONG THE HILLS
Her air, her smile, her motions, told
Of womanly completeness;
A music as of household songs
Was in her voice of sweetness.
Not fair alone in curve and Hne,
But something more and better,
The secret charm eluding art.
Its spirit, not its letter; —
An inborn grace that nothing lacked
Of culture or appliance, —
The warmth of genial courtesy.
The calm of self-reliance.
Before her queenly womanhood
How dared our hostess utter
The paltry errand of her need
To buy her fresh-churned butter?
She led the way with housewife pride.
Her goodly store disclosing,
Full tenderly the golden balls
With practised hands disposing.
(84)
AMONG THE HILLS
Then, while along the western hills
We watched the changeful glory
Of sunset, on our homeward way,
I heard her simple story.
The early crickets sang; the stream
Plashed through my friend's narration:
Her rustic patois of the hills
Lost in my free translation.
"More wise," she said, "than those who swarm
Our hills in middle summer,
She came, when June's first roses blow.
To greet the eariy comer.
"From school and ball and rout she came.
The city's fair, pale daughter.
To drink the wine of mountain air
Beside the Bearcamp Water.
" Her step grew firmer on the hills
That watch our homesteads over;
On cheek and lip, from summer fields.
She caught the bloom of clover.
(85 )
AMONG THE HILLS
'*For health comes sparkling in the streams
From cool Chocorua stealing:
There's iron in our northern winds;
Our pines are trees of healing.
"She sat beneath the broad-armed elms
That skirt the mowing meadow,
And watched the gentle west-wind weave
The grass with shine and shadow.
** Beside her, from the summer heat
To share her grateful screening.
With forehead bared, the farmer stood.
Upon his pitchfork leaning.
"Framed in its damp, dark locks, his face
Had nothing mean or common, —
Strong, manly, true, the tenderness
And pride beloved of woman.
"She looked up, glowing with the health
The country air had brought her.
And, laughing, said : * You lack a wife.
Your mother lacks a daughter.
( 86 )
AMONG THE HILLS
'*To mend your frock, and bake your bread
You do not need a lady :
Be sure among these brown old homes
Is some one waiting ready, —
"Some fair, sweet girl with skilful hand
And cheerful heart for treasure,
Who never played with ivory keys.
Or danced the polka's measure.'
"He bent his black brows to a frown.
He set his white teeth tightly.
**T is well,* he said, *for one like you
To choose for me so lightly.
*You think because my life is rude
I take no note of sweetness:
I tell you love has naught to do
With meetness or unmeet ness.
" * Itself its best excuse, it asks
No leave of pride or fashion
When silken zone or homespun frock
It stirs with throbs of passion.
( 87 )
AMONG THE HILLS
"* You think me deaf and blind: you bring
Your winning graces hither
As free as if from cradle-time
We two had played together.
"* You tempt me with your laughing eyes.
Your cheek of sundown's blushes,
A motion as of waving grain,
A music as of thrushes.
"* The plaything of your summer sport.
The spells you weave around me
You cannot at your will undo.
Nor leave me as you found me.
*** You go as lightly as you came,
Your life is well without me;
What care you that these hills will close
Like prison-walls about me?
*** No mood is mine to seek a wife.
Or daughter for my mother:
Who loves you loses in that love
All power to love another!
{ 88)
AMONG THE HILLS
*I dare your pity or your scorn,
With pride your own exceeding;
I fling my heart into your lap
Without a word of pleading.*
* She looked up in his face of pain
So archly, yet so tender:
*And if I lend you mine,* she said,
* Will you forgive the lender?
*Nor frock nor tan can hide the man;
And see you not, my farmer.
How weak and fond a woman waits
Behind the silken armor?
*I love you: on that love alone.
And not my worth, presuming.
Will you not trust for summer fruit
The tree in May-day blooming?*
* Alone the hangbird overhead.
His hair-swung cradle straining.
Looked down to see love*s miracle, —
The giving that is gaining.
(89)
AMONG THE HILLS
"And so the farmer found a wife.
His mother found a daughter:
There looks no happier home than hers
On pleasant Bearcamp Water.
"Flowers spring to blossom where she walks
The careful ways of duty;
Our hard, stiff Hues of life with her
Are flowing curves of beauty.
"Our homes are cheerier for her sake.
Our door-yards brighter blooming,
And all about the social air
Is sweeter for her coming.
"Unspoken homilies of peace
Her daily life is preaching;
The still refreshment of the dew
Is her unconscious teaching.
"And never tenderer hand than hers
Unknits the brow of ailing;
Her garments to the sick man's ear
Have music in their trailing.
(90)
AMONG THE HILLS
'And when, in pleasant harvest moons.
The youthful huskers gather,
Or sleigh-drives on the mountain ways
Defy the winter weather, —
'In sugar-camps, when south and warm
The winds of March are blowing,
And sweetly from its thawing veins
The maple*s blood is flowing, —
'In summer, where some lilied pond
Its virgin zone is bearing,
Or where the ruddy autumn fire
Lights up the apple-paring, —
'The coarseness of a ruder time
Her finer mirth displaces,
A subtler sense of pleasure fills
Each rustic sport she graces.
'Her presence lends its warmth and health
To all who come before it.
If woman lost us Eden, such
As she alone restore it.
(91 )
AMONG THE HILLS
"For larger life and wiser aims
The farmer is her debtor;
Who holds to his another's heart
Must needs be worse or better.
"Through her his civic service shows
A purer- toned ambition;
No double consciousness divides
The man and politician.
"In party's doubtful ways he trusts
Her instincts to determine;
At the loud polls, the thought of her
Recalls Christ's Mountain Sermon.
"He owns her logic of the heart.
And wisdom of unreason,
Supplying, while he doubts and weighs,
The needed word in season.
"He sees with pride her richer thought,
Her fancy's freer ranges;
And love thus deepened to respect
Is proof against all changes.
( 92 )
AMONG THE HILLS
"And if she walks at ease in ways
His feet are slow to travel,
And if she reads with cultured eyes
What his may scarce unravel,
"Still clearer, for her keener sight
Of beauty and of wonder.
He learns the meaning of the hills
He dwelt from childhood under.
"And higher, warmed with summer lights.
Or winter-crowned and hoary.
The ridged horizon lifts for him
Its inner veils of glory.
"He has his own free, bookless lore.
The lessons nature taught him.
The wisdom which the woods and hills
And toiling men have brought him:
"The steady force of will whereby
Her flexile grace seems sweeter;
The sturdy counterjwise which makes
Her woman's life completer:
(93)
AMONG THE HILLS
"A latent fire of soul which lacks
No breath of love to fan it;
And wit, that, like his native brooks,
Plays over solid granite.
"How dwarfed against his manliness
She sees the poor pretension,
The wants, the aims, the follies, born
Of fashion and convention !
"How life behind its accidents
Stands strong and self-sustaining,
The human fact transcending all
The losing and the gaining.
**And so in grateful interchange
Of teacher and of hearer,
Their lives their true distinctness keep
While daily drawing nearer.
"And if the husband or the wife
In home's strong light discovers
Such slight defaults as failed to meet
The blinded eyes of lovers,
(94)
AMONG THE HILLS
"Why need we care to ask? — who dreams
Without their thorns of roses.
Or wonders that the truest steel
The readiest spark discloses?
"For still in mutual sufferance lies
The secret of true living;
Love scarce is love that never knows
The sweetness of forgiving.
"We send the Squire to General Court,
He takes his young wife thither;
No prouder man election day
Rides through the sweet June weather.
"He sees with eyes of manly trust
All hearts to her inclining;
Not less for him his household light
That others share its shining."
Thus, while my hostess spake, there grew
Before me, warmer tinted
And outlined with a tenderer grace.
The picture that she hinted.
(95)
AMONG THE HILLS
The sunset smouldered as we drove
Beneath the deep hill-shadows.
Below us wreaths of white fog walked
Like ghosts the haunted meadows.
Sounding the summer night, the stars
Dropped down their golden plummets;
The pale arc of the Northern lights
Rose o'er the mountain summits,
Until, at last, beneath its bridge.
We heard the Bearcamp flowing.
And saw across the mapled lawn
The welcome home-lights glowing.
And, musing on the tale I heard,
'T were well, thought I, if often
To rugged farm-life came the gift
To harmonize and soften;
If more and more we found the troth
Of fact and fancy plighted,
And culture's charm and labor's strength
In rural homes united, —
(96)
AMONG THE HILLS
The simple life, the homely hearth,
With beauty's sphere surrounding.
And blessing toil where toil abounds
With graces more abounding.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
WHITEFACE
Alpine in height, a towering form it lies
Against the blue, colossal in the morn;
And haply now the foamy clouds, o'erborne.
Shall veil its summit on the eastern skies;
And now the gentler airs shall whisper sighs,
Or the imperious tempest-storm, forlorn,
Whirl o*er the grim ravines and rock-ribs, shorn;
Yet, lo! it stands immutable, defies
The passion-throes of earth !
Symbol of power.
It breasts the heavens; and when the shadows
fall,
When vales are blurred in dusk, watching, I
see
A nimbus clinging, like a golden shower.
On its white brow. Even so, when truth shall
pall
On lesser souls, the great seem rapt and free!
Stephen Henry Thayer.
(98)
CHOCORUA
Again with August fires thou beckonest me,
Chocorua, and at thy feet divine
Where even gods might kneel as at a shrine.
My soul is flooded with thy majesty.
The sun has broken from the morning free.
And with the golden dust of heaven ashine,
The noonday vapors glittering round thee twine.
And thou art wrapped in amber radiancy.
And yet I saw thee once more tragic fair,
When with the plaint of whippoorwills athrill
The moon leaned over thee in white despair
And spilled its silver agony, until
Imperial thou stoodst with bosom bare
And let its daggers stab thee at its will.
Caroline Whiton-Stone.
(99)
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
A SHALLOW stream, from fountains
Deep in the Sandwich mountains.
Ran lakeward Bearcamp River;
And, between its flood-torn shores.
Sped by sail or urged by oars.
No keel had vexed it ever.
Alone the dead trees yielding
To the dull axe Time is wielding.
The shy mink and the otter.
And golden leaves and red,
By countless autumns shed.
Had floated down its water.
From the gray rocks of Cape Ann,
Came a skilled sea-faring man,
With his dory, to the right place;
Over hill and plain he brought her,
Where the boatless Bearcamp water
Comes winding down from Whiteface.
( 100 )
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
Quoth the skipper: "Ere she floats forth,
I 'm sure my pretty boat's worth.
At least, a name as pretty."
On her painted side he wrote it.
And the flag that o*er her floated
Bore aloft the name of Jettie.
On a radiant mom of summer.
Elder guest and latest comer
Saw her wed the Bearcamp water;
Heard the name the skipper gave her.
And the answer to the favor
From the Bay State's graceful daughter.
Then a singer, richly gifted.
Her charmed voice uplifted;
And the wood-thrush and song-sparrow
Listened, dumb with envious pain.
To the clear and sweet refrain
Whose notes they could not borrow.
Then the skipper plied his oar,
And from off the shelving shore.
Glided out the strange explorer;
( 101 ) ^
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
Floating on, she knew not whither, —
The tawny sands beneath her.
The great hills watching o*er her.
On, where the stream flows quiet
As the meadows' margins by it,
Or widens out to borrow a
New life from that wild water.
The mountain giant's daughter.
The pine-besung Chocorua.
Or, mid the tangling cumber
And pack of mountain lumber
That spring floods downward force.
Over sunken snag, and bar
Where the grating shallows are,
The good boat held her course.
Under the pine-dark highlands.
Around the vine-hung islands.
She ploughed her crooked furrow;
And her rippling and her lurches
Scared the river eels and perches.
And the musk-rat in his burrow.
( 102 )
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
Every sober clam below her,
Every sage and grave pearl-grower.
Shut his rusty valves the tighter;
Crow called to crow complaining.
And old tortoises sat craning
Their leathern necks to sight her.
So, to where the still lake glasses
The misty mountain masses
Rising dim and distant northward.
And, with faint-drawn shadow pictures.
Low shores, and dead pine spectres.
Blends the skyward and the earthward.
On she glided, overladen.
With merry man and maiden
Sending back their song and laughter, —
While, perchance, a phantom crew.
In a ghostly birch canoe.
Paddled dumb and swiftly after!
And the bear on Ossipee
Climbed the topmost crag to see
The strange thing drifting under;
( 103 )
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
And, through the haze of August,
Passaconaway and Paugus
Looked down in sleepy wonder.
All the pines that d'er her hung
In mimic sea-tones sung
The song familiar to her;
And the maples leaned to screen her.
And the meadow-grass seemed greener.
And the breeze more soft to woo her.
The lone stream mystery-haunted,
To her the freedom granted
To scan its every feature.
Till new and old were blended.
And round them both extended
The loving arms of Nature.
Of these hills the little vessel
Henceforth is part and parcel;
And on Bearcamp shall her log
Be kept, as if by Georges
Or Grand Menan, the surges
Tossed her skipper through the fog.
( 104 )
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
And I, who, half in sadness.
Recall the morning gladness
Of life, at evening time.
By chance, onlooking idly,
Apart from all so widely.
Have set her voyage to rhyme.
Dies now the gay persistence
Of song and laugh, in distance;
Alone with me remaining
The stream, the quiet meadow.
The hills in shine and shadow.
The sombre pines complaining.
And, musing here, I dream
Of voyagers on a stream
From whence is no returning,
Under sealed orders going.
Looking forward little knowing.
Looking back with idle yearning.
And I pray that every venture
The port of peace may enter.
That, safe from snag and fall
( 105 )
VOYAGE OF THE JETTIE
And siren-haunted islet,
And rock, the Unseen Pilot
May guide us one and all.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
CLOUDS ON WHITEFACE
So lovingly the clouds caress his head —
The mountain-monarch; he, severe and hard.
With white face set like flint horizon- ward;
They weaving softest fleece of gold and red.
And gossamer of airiest silver thread,
Towrap his form, wind-beaten, thunder-scarred.
They linger tenderly, and fain would stay.
Since he, earth-rooted, may not float away.
He upward looks, but moves not; wears their
hues;
Draws them unto himself; their beauty shares;
And sometimes his own semblance seems to lose,
His grandeur and their grace so interfuse;
And when his angels leave him unawares,
A sullen rock, his brow to heaven he bares.
Lucy Larcom.
( 107)
MOUNT CHOCORUA
Through the wide hush of heaven's soft sunlit
blue,
A universal prophet of the hills,
You cry: "The world grows old!" High in the
stills
And calms of lofty solitude I view
The glory of thy hoary head, and through
The mellow misty shine that floods and fills
The interspace, thy ancient grandeur thrills
Adown the valleys, palpitant and new.
O, patriarch of the hills ! Thy scattered locks
Fall o'er thy shoulders broad and high up-piled;
Thy brow is wrinkled, yet thy form of rocks
Is full of aged beauty as when a child
You frolicked with the ancient world that mocks
You now grown gray, stern-faced, and wild.
Edwin Osgood Grover.
( 108 )
ON OSSIPEE
From White Evebiastino Flowkrs
That morning on the mountain-top !
Could the day's chariot wheel but stop
And leave us in this trance of light
Upon our autumn-crimsoned height —
Summit of lifted solitudes,
Where but the hermit breeze intrudes;
With one blue river glimpsed in sheen
Along the valley's perfect green;
With lakes, that open limpid eyes
Unto the old heavens' new surprise;
And over all, a purple range
Of hills, that glow and pale, and change
To pearl and turquoise, rose and snow.
As cloud processions past them go,
On unknown errands of the air.
Lucy Larcom.
( 109 )
THE SEEKING OF THE
WATERFALL
They left their home of summer ease
Beneath the lowland's sheltering trees,
To seek, by ways unknown to all.
The promise of the waterfall.
Some vague, faint rumor to the vale
Had crept — perchance a hunter's tale —
Of its wild mirth of waters lost
On the dark woods through which it tossed.
Somewhere it laughed and sang; somewhere
Whirled in mad dance its misty hair;
But who had raised its veil, or seen
The rainbow skirts of that Undine?
They sought it where the mountain brook
Its swift way to the valley took;
Along the rugged slope they clomb,
Their guide a thread of sound and foam.
Height after height they slowly won;
The fiery javelins of the sun
( no)
THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL
Smote the bare ledge; the tangled shade
With rock and vine their steps delayed.
But, through leaf-openings, now and then
They saw the cheerful homes of men.
And the great mountains with their wall
Of misty purple girdling all.
The leaves through which the glad winds blew
Shared the wild dance the waters knew;
And where the shadows deepest fell
The wood-thrush rang his silver bell.
Fringing the stream, at every turn
Swung low the waving fronds of fern;
From stony cleft and mossy sod
Pale asters sprang, and golden-rod.
And still the water sang the sweet.
Glad song that stirred its gliding feet.
And found in rock and root the keys
Of its beguiling melodies.
Beyond, above, its signals flew
Of tossing foam the birch-trees through;
( 111 )
THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL
Now seen, now lost, but baffling still
The weary seekers' slackening will.
Each called to each: "Lo here! Lo there!
Its white scarf flutters in the air!'*
They climbed anew; the vision fled,
To beckon higher overhead.
So toiled they up the mountain-slope
With faint and ever fainter hope;
With faint and fainter voice the brook
Still bade them listen, pause, and look.
Meanwhile below the day was done;
Above the tall peaks saw the sun
Sink, beam-shorn, to its misty set
Behind the hills of violet.
"Here ends our quest!" the seekers cried,
"The brook and rumor both have lied!
The phantom of a waterfall
Has led us at its beck and call."
But one, with years grown wiser, said :
"So, always baffled, not misled,
( 112 )
THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL
We follow where before us runs
The vision of the shining ones.
"Not where they seem their signals fly.
Their voices while we listen die;
We cannot keep, however fleet,
The quick time of their winged feet.
"From youth to age unresting stray
These kindly mockers in our way;
Yet lead they not, the baflSing elves.
To something better than themselves?
"Here, though unreached the goal we sought,
Its own reward our toil has brought:
The winding water's sounding rush,
The long note of the hermit thrush,
"The turquoise lakes, the glimpse of pond
And river track, and, vast, beyond
Broad meadows belted round with pines.
The grand uplift of mountain lines !
"What matter though we seek with pain
The garden of the gods in vain,
( 113)
THE SEEKING OF THE WATERFALL
If lured thereby we climb to greet
Some wayside blossom Eden-sweet?
"To seek is better than to gain,
The fond hope dies as we attain;
Life's fairest things are those which seem,
The best is that of which we dream."
John Greenleaf Whittier.
DEATH OF CHOCORUA
On the cliff's extremest brow
Fearless stands Chocorua now;
Last of all his tribe, and he
Doomed to death of cruelty.
O'er the broad green vales that lie
Far beneath, he casts his eye.
"Lands where lived and died my sires.
Where they built their council-fires;
Where they roamed and knew no fear.
Till the dread white-man drew near;
Once when swelled the war-cry round.
Flocked a thousand to the sound;
But the white men came, and they
Like the leaves have passed away.
"Wo to them who seek to spoil
The red owners of the soil!
Wo to all who on this spot
Fell the groves, or build the cot!
Blighted be the grass that springs!
Blighted be all living things!
( 115 )
DEATH OF CHOCORUA
And the pestilence extend,
'Till Chocorua*s curse shall end!"
On his murderers turned he then;
Eyes shall ever haunt those men;
Up to heaven a look he cast,
And around — beneath — his last !
Far down and lone, his bones are strown.
The sky his pall, his bed of stone.
Charles James Fox.
FRIEND BROOK
Friend Brook, I hold thee dearest yet for what I
do not know
Of thy pure secret springs afar, the mystery of
1^ thy flow
Out of the mountain caverns, hid by tangled brier
and fern;
A friend is most a friend of whom the best remains
^^P to learn.
New-born each moment, flashing light through
worn, accustomed ways.
With gentle hindrance, gay surprise, sweet hurry-
ings and delays;
Spirit that issuest forth from wells of lifeunguessed,
unseen,
A revelation thou of all that holiest friendships
mean!
I will not name the hills that meet to hold thee
hand in hand.
The summits leaning toward thy voice, the moun-
tain, lone and grand,
( 117 )
FRIEND BROOK
That looks across to welcome thee into the open
light;
Be hidden, O my brook, from all save love's anointed
sight !
Lucy Larcom.
THE SPIRIT OF WORDSWORTH
Spirit of Wordsworth, with me still
Upon the plain, upon the hill,
I find my purpose wholly bent
To be to-day thine instrument;
Led upward to the thought of thee
By all the spreading world I see.
The broad lake country at my feet
Bids Asquam with Wynander greet,
Rydal with Sunapee; and shows
The Bearcamp water where it flows
Another Rotha, stream and break.
From covert pond to glittering lake;
While Grasmere lies serene and still
By yonder tarn beneath Red Hill.
Thy mountains, Wordsworth, too, are by.
And paint their shadows on the sky.
Chocorua stands, but not alone.
For out across the scene is thrown
The memory of Helvellyn; hid
Within thy folds, Tripyramid,
Are thoughts of Kirkstone, Fairfield, all
That heard Joanna's laughing call !
(119)
THE SPIRIT OF WORDSWORTH
Whiteface is vanished in the shade
By Seawfell and Blencathra made;
While Sandwich Mountain at the west,
In Glaramara's shadow dressed,
Leads the high path toward Campton ways
Across a steeper Dunmail Raise!
Philip Henry Savage.
A GLIMPSE OF CHOCORUA
PUOIO BV MOOIir. BRISTOL
But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I. — Whittier
CHOCORUA LAKE
Small is my house, my acres small,
Yet where I look am lord of all;
And far as where my feet may roam
I ever find myself at home.
I drink the drops that thrice distill
From clouds the mountain tops unseal,
Through moss, o'er stones and sand they steal
Till forth they flow a taintless rill.
And gold is here I might have won
Had I the test of Lydian stone,
Or magic wand in hand to twist
Where silver hides below the schist.
But there are mines of richer fee
Which proud Chocoruan heights o'ersee;
Full twenty lakes, though all are dear.
Dearer Chocorua*s mountain mere.
On this to float, with that to soar.
Give these, and life can ask no more.
John Albee.
( 121 )
A MOUNTAIN-RESURRECTION
He stood there, a shape Titanic
In the midst of the shining range;
Moment by moment, his features
Beamed with some wonderful change:
For the clouds came down out of heaven;
With light he was robed and crowned.
Till glory exceeded glory
On the gathering storm around.
They melted to mists of silver.
That slid like a winding-sheet.
In swathings of shroud-like whiteness.
From his forehead to his feet.
And then he was seen no longer;
With the sound of a sobbing rain.
The hills withdrew under blackness, —
A mourning funeral-train.
And amid the vanished mountains
We sat, through an autumn day,
( 122 )
A MOUNTAIN-RESURRECTION
Remembering the trusted spirits
Who had passed from our sight away;
And knew that their resurrection
Would be but a veil let down
To show them still in their places,
Unchangeable, and our own;
And knew that the living who love us.
Love on, though the mists of doubt
May level our grand horizon.
And beauty and joy shut out.
And knew — O comforting wonder! —
That the mightiest Love of all.
Perceived not, is round about us
Like an everlasting wall.
So, amid invisible summits.
We wrapped us in calms of thought.
Faith lulled us to slumber; and morning
To life the dead mountains brought.
Lucy Larcom.
( 123 )
THE LOG-COCK
In the glens below Chocorua,
In the forests north of Paugus,
On the steeps of Passaconway,
Where the yellow birch and hemlock.
Scarred not by the blade of commerce.
Spring from moss-clad beds of granite;
Where the brown bear, law defying.
And the red deer, law protected,
Make their homes among the moose-wood.
Sleep upon the sweet linnsea;
Where in spring the leaping waters
Rush in three ways towards the ocean,
By the Saco, by the Bearcamp,
By the mad Pemigewasset;
Where in winter, moaning tempests
Rack the forests, whirl the snowflakes.
Dwells in grim and lonely glory
All the year, the sombre log-cock.
Would you seek him? Borrow owl wings
Soft as darkness, light as lake-mist;
( 124 )
THE LOG-COCK
Learn to tread the leaves with fox feet.
Like the hare to cross the snow-drifts.
Learn to burrow like the woodchuck,
Learn to listen like the partridge.
Learn to wait as does the wild cat.
Learn to start as does the red deer;
Wary, watchful, is the log-cock,
Mai> among his foes most dreading.
Frank Bolles.
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP
A GOLD fringe on the purpling hem
Of hills the river runs,
As down its long, green valley falls
The last of summer's suns.
Along its tawny gravel-bed •
Broad-flowing, swift, and still,
As if its meadow levels felt
The hurry of the hill,
Noiseless between its banks of green
From curve to curve it slips;
The drowsy maple-shadows rest
Like fingers on its lips.
A waif from Carroll's wildest hills,
Unstoried and unknown;
The ursine legend of its name
Prowls on its banks alone.
Yet flowers as fair its slopes adorn
As ever Yarrow grew,
Or, under rainy Irish skies.
By Spenser's Mulla grew;
( 126 )
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP
And through the gaps of leaning trees
Its mountain cradle shows :
The gold against the amethyst,
The green against the rose.
Touched by a light that hath no name,
A glory never sung,
Aloft on sky and mountain wall
Are God*s great pictures hung.
How changed the summits vast and old!
No longer granite-browed,
They melt in rosy mist; the rock
Is softer than the cloud;
The valley holds its breath; no leaf
Of all its elms is twirled :
The silence of eternity
Seems falling on the world.
The pause before the breaking seals
Of mystery is this;
Yon miracle-play of night and day
Makes dumb its witnesses.
What unseen altar crowns the hills
That reach up stair on stair.^
( 127 )
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP
What eyes look through, what white wings fan
These purple veils of air?
What Presence from the heavenly heights
To those of earth stoops down?
Not vainly Hellas dreamed of gods
On Ida's snowy crown!
•
Slow fades the vision of the sky,
The golden water pales,
And over all the valley-land
A gray-winged vapor sails.
I go the common way of all;
The sunset fires will burn,
The flowers will blow, the river flow,
When I no more return.
No whisper from the mountain pine
Nor lapsing stream shall tell
The stranger, treading where I tread.
Of him who loved them well.
• ..••••.a
Farewell ! These smiling hills must wear
Too soon their wintry frown,
And snow-cold winds from off them shake
The maple's red leaves down.
( 128 )
SUNSET ON THE BEARCAMP
But I shall see a summer sun
Still setting broad and low;
The mountain slopes shall blush and bloom,
The golden water flow.
A lover's claim is mine on all
I see to have and hold, —
The rose-light of perpetual hills.
And sunsets never cold !
John Greenleaf Whittieb.
CHOCORUA
The pioneer of a great company
That wait behind him, gazing toward the
east, —
Mighty ones all, down to the nameless least, —
Though after him none dares to press, where he
With bent head listens to the minstrelsy
Of far waves chanting to the moon, their priest.
What phantom rises up from winds deceased?
What whiteness of the unapproachable sea?
Hoary Chocorua guards his mystery well:
He pushes back his fellows, lest they hear
The haunting secret he apart must tell
To his lone self, in the sky-silence clear:
A shadowy, cloud-cloaked wraith, with shoulders
bowed,
He steals, conspicuous, from the mountain-crowd.
Lucy Larcom.
( 130)
Ill
THE LAKE-LAND
O gems of sapphire, granite-set!
0 hills that charmed horizons fret!
1 know how fair your morns can break.
In rosy light on isle and lake!
Whittieb.
THE LAKESIDE
The shadows round the inland sea
Are deepening into night;
Slow up the slopes of Ossipee
They chase the lessening light.
Tired of the long day's blinding heat,
I rest my languid eye.
Lake of the Hills! where, cool and sweet.
Thy sunset waters lie !
Along the sky, in wavy lines,
O'er isle and reach and bay.
Green-belted with eternal pines.
The mountains stretch away.
Below, the maple masses sleep
Where shore with water blends.
While midway on the tranquil deep
The evening light descends.
So seemed it when yon hill's red crown,
Of old, the Indian trod.
And through the sunset air, looked down
Upon the Smile of God.
( 133 )
THE LAKESIDE
To him of light and shade the laws
No forest skeptic taught;
Their living and eternal Cause
His truer instinct sought.
He saw these mountains in the light
Which now across them shines;
This lake, in summer sunset bright,
Walled round with sombering pines.
God near him seemed; from earth and skies
His loving voice he heard,
As, face to face, in Paradise,
Man stood before the Lord.
Thanks, O our Father! that, like him.
Thy tender love I see.
In radiant hill and woodland dim,
And tinted sunset sea.
For not in mockery dost Thou fill
Our earth with light and grace;
Thou hid'st no dark and cruel will
Behind Thy smiling face!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
AT ALTON BAY
'"We saw in the distance the dusky lake fade.
Empurpled with twilight's last tinges;
And slow came the Night, with her curtains of
shade,
And the round rosy moon in their fringes.
We marked in the sky, in the cloud-lakes on
high.
The flocks of birds dreamily sailing
From the peaks in the West, and settle to rest
Where the forest light slowly was failing.
Round bright Alton Bay.
Mist curtained the mountains, — we climbed the
dark heights.
But a feeling of sadness came o'er us.
As we saw on the hillsides the camp-meeting lights.
And heard the lone worshippers' chorus —
"It is well with my soul!" — how it echoed afar
O'er the lake in the deep mountain shadows,
While bright in the sky shone the evening star
O'er the lonely lake islands and meadows
At still Alton Bay.
( 135 )
AT ALTON BAY
I knew not the singers, their creeds or their
names;
I heard but the chorus ascending,
While bright through the pines shone the night-
torches' flames
With the rays of the shaded moon blending;
And I said on that night, as I stood on the
height.
When time measures my joy and my sorrow.
My life I would close as the birds seek repose.
To dream of a beautiful morrow
At dim Alton Bay.
Then we talked of the main, and its night-dark-
ened plain.
Of the sweet prayer of trust on the billows;
The worshippers' strain rising sweet in the fane
In the vale by the cool village willows;
The cathedral's aisle dim, the antiphonal hymn.
The baptismal vow at the fountain :
Yet more grand seemed the word that our charmed
ears had heard —
"It is well with my soul!" — on the mountain,
At calm Alton Bay.
( 136 )
AT ALTON BAY
Morn lighted the bay, our boat glided away.
But the fair lake I see as a vision;
And in dreams hear again the lone camp-meeting's
strain
Like a call from the portals elysian.
When the shade of the past shall be lengthened at
last,
And the earth light around me Is paling.
May some holy song's breath on the mountain of
faith
Turn my heart to the Refuge unfailing.
As at far Alton Bay.
Hezekiah Butterworth.
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE
To kneel before some saintly shrine.
To breathe the health of airs divine,
Or bathe where sacred rivers flow,
The cowled and turbaned pilgrims go.
I too, a palmer, take, as they
With staff and scallop-shell, my way
To feel, from burdening cares and ills.
The strong uplifting of the hills.
The years are many since, at first.
For dreamed-of wonders all athirst,
I saw on Winnipesaukee fall
The shadow of the mountain wall.
Ah ! where are they who sailed with me
The beautiful island-studded sea?
And am I he whose keen surprise
Flashed out from such unclouded eyes?
Still, when the sun of summer burns.
My longing for the hills returns;
And northward, leaving at my back
The warm vale of the Merrimack,
( 138 )
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE
I go to meet the winds of morn,
Blown down the hill-gaps, mountain-born.
Breathe scent of pines, and satisfy
The hunger of a lowland eye.
Again I see the day decline
Along a ridged horizon line;
Touching the hill-tops, as a nun
Her beaded rosary, sinks the sun.
One lake lies golden, which shall soon
Be silver in the rising moon;
And one, the crimson of the skies
And mountain purple multiplies.
With the untroubled quiet blends
The distance-softened voice of friends;
The girl's light laugh no discord brings
To the low song the pine-tree sings;
And, not unwelcome, comes the hail
Of boyhood from his nearing sail.
And human presence breaks no spell.
And sunset still is miracle!
Calm as the hour, methinks I feel
A sense of worship o*er me steal;
( 139 )
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE
Not that of satyr-charming Pan,
No cult of Nature shaming Man,
Not Beauty's self, but that which lives
And shines through all the veil, it weaves, -
Soul of the mountain, lake, and wood.
Their witness to the Eternal Good !
And if, by fond illusion, here
The earth to heaven seems drawing near.
And yon outlying range invites
To other and serener heights.
Scarce hid behind its topmost swell.
The shining Mounts Delectable!
A dream may hint of truth no less
Than the sharp light of wakefulness.
As through her veil of incense smoke
Of old the spell-rapt priestess spoke.
More than her heathen oracle.
May not this trance of sunset tell
That Nature's forms of loveliness
Their heavenly archetypes confess.
Fashioned like Israel's ark alone
From patterns in the Mount made known?
( 140 )
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE
A holier beauty overbroods
These fair and faint simiHtudes;
Yet not unblest is he who sees
Shadows of God's reahties,
And knows beyond this masquerade
Of shape and color, light and shade,
And dawn and set, and wax and wane,
Eternal verities remain.
O gems of sapphire, granite set !
0 hills that charmed horizons fret!
1 know how fair your morns can break.
In rosy light on isle and lake;
How over wooded slopes can run
The noonday play of cloud and sun,
And evening droop her oriflamme
Of gold and red in still Asquam.
The summer moons may round again.
And careless feet these hills profane;
These sunsets waste on vacant eyes
The lavish splendor of the skies;
Fashion and folly, misplaced here.
Sigh for their natural atmosphere,
( 141 )
A SUMMER PILGRIMAGE
And travelled pride the outlook scorn
Of lesser heights than Matterhorn:
But let me dream that hill and sky
Of unseen beauty prophesy;
And in these tinted lakes behold
The trailing of the raiment fold
Of that which, still eluding gaze.
Allures to upward-tending ways,
Whose footprints make, wherever found,
Our common earth a holy ground.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
PASQUANEY
Ah, Loch Katrine,
Thy beauties have the bards of Scotia sung
From days untold;
And every clime has seen
Thy crystal p)ool by mountains overhung.
Thy tints of gold, —
But not for me thy charms, fair Loch Katrine;
For I will dream my summer hours away
Where on the beach the lazy ripples play
Of that sweet lake unsung and half unknown, -
Pasquaney, 'mid the forest dells alone.
Why cross the sea.
To view the Trossachs wild in Scotia's land?
For mile on mile
The rugged mountains free
About my lake are piled on every hand.
And Ellen's Isle
Beneath a beetling cliff here one may see;
And bare and lone against the western skies
Behold the sentry peak Ben Ledi rise.
O that another "Wizard of the North"
Might rise to sound their modest praises forth.
( 143 •)
PASQUANEY
And bright Lemain,
The sad-souled Byron found delight in thee.
And every clime
Has joined in rapturous strain
To praise fair Como, gem of Italy;
But no dark crime
Has dyed Pasquaney with unseemly stain,
For on my lake there stands no dark Chillon,
With dungeon towers to dim the rays of morn;
No haughty Rome has ever ruled by thee.
Thy streams are fetterless, thy waves are free.
O mountain lake,
Would I could free thee from a name uncouth.
And could restore
The name that thou didst take
From that dark race that loved thy lonely youth
In days of yore —
The name that hints of breezes half awake.
The voice of wild ducks sporting in the flags.
The trout's bold leap, the rustling birches' rags.
The honk of wild geese on an autumn noon.
The wild, unearthly laughter of the loon.
Fred Lewis Pattee.
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles
Dimple round its hundred isles,
And the mountain's granite ledge
Cleaves the water like a wedge.
Ringed about with smooth, gray stones.
Rest the giant's mighty bones.
Close beside, in shade and gleam.
Laughs and ripples Melvin stream;
Melvin water, mountain-born.
All fair flowers its banks adorn;
All the woodland's voices meet.
Mingling with its murmurs sweet.
Over lowlands forest-grown.
Over waters island-strown.
Over silver-sanded beach,
Leaf-locked bay and misty reach,
Melvin stream and burial-heap.
Watch and ward the mountains keep.
( 145 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Who that Titan cromlech fills?
Forest-kaiser, lord o* the hills?
Knight who on the birchen tree
Carved his savage heraldry?
Priest o' the pine-wood temples dim.
Prophet, sage, or wizard grim?
Rugged type of primal man,
Grim utilitarian.
Loving woods for hunt and prowl,
Lake and hill for fish and fowl.
As the brown bear bhnd and dull
To the grand and beautiful :
Not for him the lesson drawn
From the mountains smit with dawn.
Star-rise, moon-rise, flowers of May,
Sunset's purple bloom of day, —
Took his life no hue from thence.
Poor amid such affluence?
Haply unto hills and tree
All too near akin was he:
Unto him who stands afar
( 146 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Nature's marvels greatest are;
Who the mountain purple seeks
Must not climb the higher peaks.
Yet who knows, in winter tramp,
Or the midnight of the camp,
What revealings faint and far,
Stealing down from moon and star,
Kindled in that human clod
Thought of destiny and God?
Stateliest forest patriarch,
Grand in robes of skin and bark.
What sepulchral mysteries.
What weird funeral-rites, were his?
What sharp wail, what drear lament,
Back scared wolf and eagle sent?
Now, whate'er he may have been.
Low he lies as other men;
On his mound the partridge drums.
There the noisy blue-jay comes;
Rank nor name nor pomp has he
In the grave's democracy.
( 147 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAItE
Part thy blue lips, Northern lake!
Moss-grown rocks, your silence break!
Tell the tale, thou ancient tree!
Thou, too, slide- worn Ossipee!
Speak, and tell us how and when
Lived and died this king of men!
Wordless moans the ancient pine;
Lake and mountain give no sign;
Vain to trace this ring of stones;
Vain the search of crumbling bones:
Deepest of all mysteries.
And the saddest, silence is.
Nameless, noteless, clay with clay
Mingles slowly day by day;
But somewhere, for good or ill,
That dark soul is living still;
Somewhere yet that atom's force
Moves the light-poised universe.
Strange that on his burial-sod
Harebells bloom, and golden-rod.
While the soul's dark horoscope
( 148 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Holds no starry sign of hope !
Is the Unseen with sight at odds?
Nature's pity more than God's?
This I mused by Melvin's side.
While the summer eventide
Made the woods and inland sea
And the mountains mystery;
And the hush of earth and air
Seemed the pause before a prayer, —
Prayer for him, for all who rest.
Mother Earth, upon thy breast, —
Lapped on Christian turf, or hid
In rock-cave or pyramid :
All who sleep, as all who live.
Well may need the prayer, "Forgive!"
Desert-smothered caravan,
Knee-deep dust that once was man^
Battle-trenches ghastly piled.
Ocean-floors with white bones tiled,
Crowded tomb and mounded sod.
Dumbly crave that prayer to God.
( 149 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Oh, the generations old
Over whom no church-bells tolled,
Christless, lifting up blind eyes
To the silence of the skies!
For the innumerable dead
Is my soul disquieted.
Where be now these silent hosts?
Where the camping-ground of ghosts?
Where the spectral conscripts led
To the white tents of the dead?
What strange shore or chartless sea
Holds the awful mystery?
Then the warm sky stooped to make
Double sunset in the lake;
While above I saw with it,
Range on range, the mountains lit;
And the calm and splendor stole
Like an answer to my soul.
Hear'st thou, O of little faith.
What to thee the mountain saith.
What is whispered by the trees? —
( 150 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
"Cast on God thy care for these;
Trust Him, if thy sight be dim:
Doubt for them is doubt of Him.
"Blind must be their close-shut eyes
Where like night the sunshine lies,
Fiery-linked the self-forged chain
Binding ever sin to pain,
Strong their prison-house of will,
But without He waiteth still.
"Not with hatred's undertow
Doth the Love Eternal flow;
Every chain that spirits wear
Crumbles in the breath of prayer;
And the penitent's desire
Opens every gate of fire.
"Still Thy love, O Christ arisen.
Yearns to reach these souls in prison!
Through all depths of sin and loss
Drops the plummet of Thy cross !
Never yet abyss was found
Deeper than that cross could sound!"
( 151 )
THE GRAVE BY THE LAKE
Therefore well may Nature keep
Equal faith with all who sleep,
Set her watch of hills around
Christian grave and heathen mound.
And to cairn and kirkyard send
Summer's flowery dividend.
Keep, O pleasant Melvin stream.
Thy sweet laugh in shade and gleam!
On the Indian's grassy tomb
Swing, O flowers, your bells of bloom !
Deep below, as high above.
Sweeps the circle of God's love.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
AT WINNIPESAUKEE
O SILENT hills across the lake,
Asleep in moonlight, or awake
To catch the color of the sky.
That sifts through every cloud swept by, —
How beautiful ye are, in change
Of sultry haze and storm-light strange;
How dream-like rest ye on the bar
That parts the billow from the star;
How blend your mists with waters clear.
Till earth floats off, and heaven seems near!
Ye faint and fade, a pearly zone.
The coast-line of a land unknown.
Yet that is sunburnt Ossipee,
Plunged knee-deep in yon glistening sea:
Somewhere among these grouping isles,
Old Whiteface from his cloud-cap smiles.
And gray Chocorua bends his crown,
To look on happy hamlets down;
( 153 )
AT WINNIPESAUKEE
And every pass and mountain-slope
Leads out and on some human hope.
Here, the great hollows of the hills.
The glamour of the June day fills.
Along the climbing path, the brier,
In rose-bloom beauty beckoning higher.
Breathes sweetly the warm uplands over;
And, gay with buttercups and clover.
Smooth slopes of meadowy freshness make
A green foil to the sparkling lake.
So is it with yon hills that swim
Upon the horizon, blue and dim :
For all the summer is not ours;
On other shores familiar flowers
Find blossoming as fresh as these,
In shade and shine and eddying breeze;
And scented slopes as cool and green.
To kiss of lisping ripples lean.
So is it with the land beyond
This earth we press with step so fond.
Upon those faintly-outlined hills
God's sunshine sleeps, his dew distills;
( 154 )
AT WINNIPESAUKEE
The dear beatitudes of home
Within the heavenly boundaries come:
The hearts that made life's fragrance here.
To Eden-haunts bring added cheer;
And all the beauty, all the good,
Lost to our lower altitude.
Transfigured, yet the same, are given.
Upon the mountain-heights of heaven.
O cloud-swathed hills the flood across.
Ye hide the mystery of our loss.
Yet hide it but a little while:
Past sunlit shore and shadowy isle.
Out to the still Lake's farther brim.
Erelong our bark the wave shall skim :
And what the vigor and the glow
Our earthly-torpid souls shall know.
When, grounding on the silver sands.
We feel the clasp of loving hands.
And see the walls of sapphire gleam.
Nor tongue can tell, nor heart can dream.
But in your rifts of wondrous light
Wherewith these lower fields are bright,
( 155 )
AT WINNIPESAUKEE
In every strengthening breeze that brings
The mountain-health upon its wings.
We own the gift of Pentecost,
And not one hint of heaven is lost.
Lucy Larcom.
THE HILL-TOP
The burly driver at my side,
We slowly climbed the hill,
Whose summit, in the hot noontide.
Seemed rising, rising still.
At last, our short noon-shadows hid
The top-stone, bare and brown.
From whence, like Gizeh's pyramid.
The rough mass slanted down.
I felt the cool breath of the North;
Between me and the sun,
0*er deep, still lake, and ridgy earth,
I saw the cloud-shades run.
Before me, stretched for glistening miles.
Lay mountain-girdled Squam;
Like green-winged birds, the leafy isles
Upon its bosom swam.
And, glimmering through the sun-haze warm.
Far as the eye could roam,
Dark billows of an earthquake storm
Beflecked with clouds like foam,
( 157)
THE HILL-TOP
Their vales in misty shadow deep,
Their rugged peaks in shine,
I saw the mountain ranges sweep
The horizon's northern Hne.
There towered Chocorua's peak; and west,
Moosehillock's woods were seen.
With many a nameless slide-scarred crest
And pine-dark gorge between.
Beyond them, like a sun-rimmed cloud.
The great Notch mountains shone,
Watched over by the solemn-browed
And awful face of stone!
'A good look-off!" the driver spake:
"About this time last year,
I drove a party to the Lake,
And stopped, at evening, here.
*T was duskish down below; but all
These hills stood in the sun.
Till, dipped behind yon purple wall,
He left them, one by one.
'A lady, who, from Thornton Hill,
Had held her place outside,
( 158 )
TS ^
2i' i
THE HILL-TOP
And, as a pleasant woman will,
Had cheered the long, dull ride.
Besought me, with so sweet a smile.
That — though I hate delays —
I could not choose but rest awhile, —
(These women have such ways!)
*0n yonder mossy ledge she sat.
Her sketch upon her knees,
A stray brown lock beneath her hat
Unrolling in the breeze;
Her sweet face, in the sunset light
Upraised and glorified, —
I never saw a prettier sight
In all my mountain ride.
'As good as fair; it seemed her joy
To comfort and to give;
My poor, sick wife, and cripple boy.
Will bless her while they live!"
The tremor in the driver's tone
His manhood did not shame:
I daresay, sir, you may have known — "
He named a well-known name.
( 159 )
THE HILL-TOP
Then sank the pyramidal mounds.
The blue lake fled away;
For mountain-scope a parlor's bounds,
A lighted hearth for day !
From lonely years and weary miles
The shadows fell apart;
Kind voices cheered, sweet human smiles
Shone warm into my heart.
We journeyed on; but earth and sky
Had power to charm no more;
Still dreamed my inward-turning eye
The dream of memory o*er.
Ah! human kindness, human love, —
To few who seek denied, —
Too late we learn to prize above
The whole round w orld beside !
John Greenleaf Whittier.
TO LAKE SUNAPEE
Lake of the wild fowl, Soonipi the Blest!
Agleam in gold of summer day begun.
Rosed with the crimson ray of stooping sun.
Jewelled by pallid planet in the west —
Oh ! thou art beautiful, whatever the test —
Slumbering through painted trees through au-
tumn's noon,
Pulsing with snow-cast fires, Aurora-won —
I love thy laughing May-time face the best.
Ah me! how oft, when passions stir the soul.
And midnight labor burns away the brain,
Fancy doth limn thy trembling streamlets fleckt,
Each warbling dell, each orchis-trodden knoll;
I live the listless, halcyon hours again.
And find strange solace in the retrospect.
John Duncan Quackenbos.
( 161 )
SUNSET ON LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE
A CLOUD of pearl and rose lies low in the burning
west;
On a couch of crimson and gold the sun sinks down
to rest;
The distant hills and woods are touched with the
mellow glow,
And his parting smile is shed on the dreaming lake
below.
It gleams on the snowy sail afloat on the rosy
tide,
And falls with a gracious light on Gunstock's
rugged side;
But the crimson turns to gold, and the gold turns
into gray.
And a breathless hush of peace sweeps over the
dying day.
While up from the quiet shore the lengthened
shadows creep,
And the robins chirp good-night ere they fold their
wings in sleep;
( 162 )
Ifsu
SUNSET ON LAKE WINNIPES AUKEE
From the belt of darkened pines that skirt the
rocky hill
Borne on the evening breeze comes the call of the
whip-poor-will.
The last pale ray departs, and the lingering day-
light dies.
And only a pearly gleam remains in the western
I skies;
In the dark and shadowed lake the summer star-
light gleams —
Night spreads her brooding wings and folds the
earth in dreams.
Emma Gertrude Weston.
STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM
A CLOUD, like that the old-time Hebrew saw
On Carmel prophesying rain, began
To lift itself o'er wooded Cardigan,
Growing and blackening. Suddenly, a flaw
Of chill wind menaced; then a strong blast beat
Down the long valley's murmuring pines, and
woke
The noon-dream of the sleeping lake, and broke
Its smooth steel mirror at the mountains* feet.
Thunderous and vast, a fire- veined darkness swept
Over the rough pine- bearded Asquam range;
A wraith of tempest, wonderful and strange,
From peak to peak the cloudy giant stepped.
One moment, as if challenging the storm,
Chocorua's tall, defiant sentinel
Looked from his watch-tower; then the shadow
fell.
And the wild rain-drift blotted out his form.
( 164 )
■
V STORM ON LAKE ASQUAM
And over all the still unhidden sun,
I Weaving its fight through slant-blown veils of
rain,
Smiled on the trouble, as hope smiles on pain;
And, when the tumult and the strife were done.
With one foot on the lake and one on land.
Framing within his crescent's tinted streak
A far-off picture of the Melvin peak,
Sp)ent broken clouds the rainbow's angel spanned.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
«
Should you go to Center Harbor,
As haply you sometime may.
Sailing up the Winnipesaukee
From the hills of Alton Bay, —
Into the heart of the highlands.
Into the north wind free,
Through the rising and vanishing islands.
Over the mountain sea, —
To the little hamlet lying
White in its mountain fold,
Asleep by the lake and dreaming
A dream that is never told, —
And in the Red Hill's shadow
Your pilgrim home you make,
Where the chambers open to sunrise.
The mountains, and the lake, —
If the pleasant picture wearies.
As the fairest sometimes will,
( 166 )
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
And the weight of the hills lies on you.
And the water is all too still, —
If in vain the peaks of Gunstock
Redden with sunrise fire,
And the sky and the purple mountains
And the sunset islands tire, —
If you turn from in-door thrumming
And the clatter of bowls without.
And the folly that goes on its travels.
Bearing the city about, —
And the cares you left behind you
Come hunting along your track.
As Blue-Cap in German fable
Rode on the traveller's pack, —
Let me tell you a tender story
Of one w^ho is now no more,
A tale to haunt like a spirit
The Winnipesaukee shore, —
Of one who was brave and gentle,
And strong for manly strife,
( 167 )
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
Riding with cheering and music
Into the tourney of life.
Faltering and failing midway
In the Tempter's subtle snare.
The chains of an evil habit
He bowed himself to bear.
Over his fresh young manhood
The bestial veil was flung, —
The curse of the wine of Circe,
The spell her weavers sung.
Yearly did hill and lakeside
Their summer idyls frame;
Alone in his darkened dwelling
He hid his face for shame.
The music of life's great marches
Sounded for him in vain;
The voices of human duty
Smote on his ear like pain.
In vain over island and water
The curtains of sunset swung;
( 168 )
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
In vain on the beautiful mountains
The pictures of God were hung.
The wretched years crept onward,
Each sadder than the last;
All the bloom of life fell from him,
All the freshness and greenness past.
But deep in his heart forever
And unprofaned he kept
The love of his saintly mother.
Who in the graveyard slept.
His house had no pleasant pictures;
Its comfortless walls were bare :
But the riches of earth and ocean
Could not purchase his mother's chair.
The old chair, quaintly carven.
With oaken arms outspread.
Whereby, in the long gone twilights
His childish prayers were said.
For thence in his lone night watches.
By moon or starlight dim,
( 169 )
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
A face full of love and pity
And tenderness looked on him.
And oft, as the grieving presence
Sat in his mother's chair,
The groan of his self-upbraiding
Grew into wordless prayer.
At last, in the moonless midnight.
The summoning angel came.
Severe in his pity, touching
The house with fingers of flame.
The red light flashed from its windows
And flared from its sinking roof;
And baffled and awed before it
The villagers stood aloof.
They shrank from the falling rafters.
They turned from the furnace glare;
But its tenant cried, "God help me!
I must save my mother's chair!"
Under the blazing portal,
Over the floor of fire,
( 170 )
A LEGEND OF THE LAKE
He seemed, in the terrible splendor,
A martyr on his pyre!
In his face the mad flames smote him.
And stimg him on either side;
But he clung to the sacred relic, —
By his mother's chair he died!
O mother, with human yearnings!
O saint, by the altar stairs!
Shall not the dear God give thee
The child of thy many prayers?
O Christ ! by whom the loving.
Though erring, are forgiven.
Hast thou for him no refuge.
No quiet place in heaven?
Give palms to thy strong martyrs.
And crown thy saints with gold.
But let the mother welcome
Her lost one to thy fold.
John GREENLEAr Whittier.
LAKE WINNIPESAUKEE
We know not which is fairer, the repose
Of verdured islands, or the tremulous foam
That guards them, as the ancients cradled
Rome —
Cherished in splendor. To the heights gleam those
Majestic sentinels that silence knows
And the proud heavens; — Chocorua's lofty
home,
Ossipee, Whiteface, Belknap's double dome,
Lone Washington and Lafayette, where glows
A grandeur that exceedeth mortal ken.
Lake of the hills, thou art the link to bind
Yon mountains and our souls! thy beating breast.
Less equable, endears the humble mind;
For had ye, Hills, no human bonds confest.
Ye were the shrine of gods and not of men !
Fanny Runnells Poole.
( 172 )
TO LAKE ASQUAM
.^Egean seas are wondrous fair,
And Como*s waters clear;
Killarney's lakes, far-famed in song.
To Irish hearts are dear.
But girted round by northern hills.
The fairest waters play
That e*er a summer sunset tinged
With gold at close of day.
Fair Asquam, nestling in thy vale.
Where all is peace and rest.
Whose islands on thy bosom sleep
As on a mother's breast!
I dream by thee till evening shades
Upon thy waves I see,
Then turn from thy beatitudes
To leave my peace with thee.
Walter Peaslee.
( 173 )
THE WOOD GIANT
From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome,
From Mad to Saco river.
For patriarchs of the primal wood
We sought with vain endeavor.
At last to us a woodland path.
To open sunset leading,
Revealed the Anakim of pines
Our wildest wish exceeding.
Alone, the level sun before;
Below, the lake's green islands;
Beyond, in misty distance dim.
The rugged Northern Highlands.
Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill
Of time and change defiant!
How dwarfed the common woodland seemed,
Before the old-time giant!
What marvel that, in simpler days
Of the world's early childhood,
( 174 )
THE WOOD GIANT
Men crowned with garlands, gifts, and praise.
Such monarchs of the wild-wood?
That Tyrian maids with flower and song
Danced through the hill grove's spaces.
And hoary -bearded Druids found
In woods their holy places?
With somewhat of that Pagan awe
With Christian reverence blending,
We saw our pine-tree's mighty arms
Above our heads extending.
We heard his needles' mystic rune.
Now rising, and now dying,
As erst Dodona's priestess heard
The oak leaves prophesying.
Was it the half-unconscious moan
Of one apart and mateless.
The weariness of unshared p>ower.
The loneliness of greatness?
O dawns and sunsets, lend to him
Your beauty and your wonder !
( 175 )
THE WOOD GIANT
Blithe sparrow, sing thy summer song
His solemn shadow under!
Play lightly on his slender keys,
O wind of summer, waking
For hills like these the sound of seas
On far-off beaches breaking!
And let the eagle and the crow
Find shelter in his branches.
When winds shake down his winter snow
In silver avalanches.
The brave are braver for their cheer.
The strongest need assurance,
The sigh of longing makes not less
The lesson of endurance.
John Greenleaf Whittier,
THE WHITTIER PINE
COPVKIOHT BY KIMBALL, CONCORD
Dark Titan on his Sunset Hill,
Of time and change defiant. ■
Whittier
LAKE SUNAPEE
Oh, how delightful is the mountain air
Cooled on thy crested water, Sunapee !
We wonder if Lake Leman is more fair.
More sweet the gales of storied Araby.
We breathe the breath of lilies, and the balm
Of woods forever green, while from the calm
Like sounds of far-off voices drawing near.
The coming of the summer wind we hear
In the long branches; rising like a psalm
Of peace upon thy shore, more sweet, more clear
Than song of angels to the morning star.
When, from the rifted darkness of old time,
Kearsarge and Sunapee arose sublime
To watch thy face forever, from afar.
Clark Cochrane.
( 177 )
FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS
Around Sebago's lonely lake
There lingers not a breeze to break
The mirror which its waters make.
The solemn pines along its shore,
The firs which hang its gray rocks o'er,
Are painted on its glassy floor.
The sun looks o'er, with hazy eye.
The snowy mountain-tops which lie
Piled coldly up against the sky.
Dazzling and white ! save where the bleak,
Wild winds have bared some splintering peak,
Or snow-slide left its dusky streak.
Yet green are Saco's banks below,
And belts of spruce and cedar show.
Dark fringing round those cones of snow*
The earth hath felt the breath of spring.
Though yet on her deliverer's wing
The lingering frosts of winter cling.
( 178 )
FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS
Fresh grasses fringe the meadow-brooks.
And mildly from its sunny nooks
The blue eye of the violet looks.
And odors from the springing grass,
The sweet birch and the sassafras,
Upon the scarce-felt breezes pass.
Her tokens of renewing care
Hath Nature scattered everywhere.
In bud and flower, and warmer air.
But in their hour of bitterness,
What reck the broken Sokokis,
Beside their slaughtered chief, of this?
The turf's red stain is still undried,
Scarce have the death-shot echoes died
Along Sebago's wooded side;
And silent now the hunters stand,
Grouped darkly, where a swell of land
Slopes upward from the lake's white sand.
( 179 )
FUNERAL TREE OF THE SOKOKIS
Fire and the axe have swept it bare.
Save one lone beech, unclosing there
Its light leaves in the vernal air.
With grave, cold looks, all sternly mute,
They break the damp turf at its foot,
And bare its coiled and twisted root.
They heave the stubborn trunk aside,
The firm roots from the earth divide, —
The rent beneath yawns dark and wide.
And there the fallen chief is laid,
In tasselled garb of skins arrayed,
And girded with his wampum-braid.
The silver cross he loved is pressed
Beneath the heavy arms, which rest
Upon his scarred and naked breast.
*T is done: the roots are backward sent.
The beechen-tree stands up unbent.
The Indian's fitting monument!
• •>»••••
John Greenleaf Whittier.
THE VOICE ON THE MOUNTAIN
IH O'er the waters of Pasquaney,
PV On the mountain ragged, thorny,
Wild and rising from the waters, rising sheer,
IB I>v\'ells an imp or nymph or woman,
* With a mellow voice quite human.
Never failing, never ceasing, sweet to hear;
Joining in my songs of gladness.
Sighing in my hours of sadness.
Sighing, laughing, never far and never near.
"Ah me! Ha! ha! Ah woe!"
Comes the voice or high or low,
"Ah me! Ha! ha! Ah woe!"
II
For her story I beseech her,
"Art thou, then, some wayward creature.
Half a maiden, half a fairy, sad and lone.
Longing for the love of mortal.
Yet debarred from that blest portal.
Longing, pining till thou hast but voice alone?
Or the ghost of dusky maiden
Lingering there with sorrow laden.
Grieving, sighing, for the happy days long flown?
( 181 )
THE VOICE ON THE MOUNTAIN
Alas! Alas! To know!"
Came an answer sad and low,
"A lass? A lass? O, no."
Wilt thou drive me quite to madness?
Thou art then the imp of sadness.
Oft the world seems black and lonely and forlorn.
And I cry, "Life is a shadow
Like the fog upon the meadow,
Like the flashing, flimsy dew-web of the morn;
Youth is but a time for sighing.
Age is but a time for dying,
All between a paltry bubble quickly torn; —
Our life is pain ! Ah, woe!"
Came the far voice, soft and low,
"Your life is pain? Ah, no."
Ah, I hail the nymph of gladness.
In thy voice no trace of sadness ; —
Sometimes of a summer morning all is bright.
And I cry, "Oh, life is sweetness;
Earth has given in completeness
Heavenly sounds and fragrant perfumes, and our
sight
( 182 )
THE VOICE ON THE MOUNTAIN
Has regaled with floods of beauty
Till it seems our only duty
Just to praise God for the sweetness and the light; —
My life's all joy, I know."
Came the voice no longer low,
"Thy life's all joy? Ah, no!"
What, then, art thou, wayward creature.
Thou who hast not sense or feature.
Save a voice that sympathizes with my soul?
If not imp or nymph or maiden.
If not shade with sadness laden,
Why dost enter every mood, oh why condole
When my heart with grief is breaking.
Laugh when joy has stopped its aching !
I would know thee, love thee, seek thee and con-
sole;—
A voice? Oh, more, I know!"
Came the whisper sighing low,
"A voice, — no more, ah no!"
Fred Lewis Pattee.
WINNIPESAUKEE
A WORLD of beauty everywhere we go !
The mountains gleaming through the hazy veil.
The deep blue sky where fleecy cloudlets sail,
Are imaged in the placid lake below,
Where white in little coves the lilies blow.
The giant pine trees and the flowerets frail
Their fragrance on the summer air exhale.
And beautiful the drifts of daisy snow!
The dreamy twilight softly on us steals,
The fire-fly stars come twinkling in the green.
In distance dim, a plaintive voice appeals
To "Whip-poor- Will," who ever keeps unseen.
The moon comes up, across the lake's expanse
The fairy beams in golden sandals dance.
Eva Beede Odell,
( 184 )
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
I. NOON
White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep.
Light mists, whose soft embraces keep
The sunshine on the hills asleep !
O isles of calm ! O dark, still wood!
And stiller skies that overbrood
Your rest with deeper quietude !
O shapes and hues, dim beckoning, through
Yon mountain gaps, my longing view
Beyond the purple and the blue,
To stiller sea and greener land.
And softer lights and airs more bland,
And skies, — the hollow of God's hand !
Transfused through you, O mountain friends!
With mine your solemn spirit blends,
And life no more hath separate ends.
( 185 )
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
I read each misty mountain sign,
I know the voice of wave and pine,
And I am yours, and ye are mine.
Life's burdens fall, its discords cease,
I lapse into the glad release
Of Nature's own exceeding peace.
O welcome calm of heart and mind!
As falls yon fir-tree's loosened rind
To leave a tenderer growth behind,
So fall the weary years away;
A child again, my head I lay
Upon the lap of this sweet day.
This western wind hath Lethean powers.
Yon noonday cloud nepenthe showers.
The lake is white with lotus-flowers!
Even Duty's voice is faint and low,
And slumberous Conscience, waking slow,
Forgets her blotted scroll to show.
( 186 )
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
The Shadow which pursues us all,
Whose ever-nearing steps appall,
Whose voice we hear behind us call, —
That Shadow blends with mountain gray.
It speaks but what the light waves say, —
Death walks apart from Fear to-day !
Rocked on her breast, these pines and I
Alike on Nature's love rely;'
And equal seems to live or die.
Assured that He whose presence fills
With light the spaces of these hills
No evil to His creatures wills.
The simple faith remains, that He
Will do, whatever that may be.
The best alike for man and tree.
What mosses over one shall grow.
What light and life the other know,
Unanxious, leaving Him to show.
( 187 )
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
II. EVENING
Yon mountain's side is black with night,
While, broad-orbed, o'er its gleaming crown
The moon, slow-rounding into sight.
On the hushed inland sea looks down.
How start to light the clustering isles,
Each silver-hemmed! How sharply show
The shadows of their rocky piles.
And tree-tops in the wave below !
How far and strange the mountains seem,
Dim-looking through the pale, still light!
The vague, vast grouping of a dream.
They stretch into the solemn night.
Beneath, lake, wood, and peopled vale.
Hushed by that presence grand and grave,
Are silent, save the cricket's wail.
And low response of leaf and wave.
Fair scenes ! whereto the Day and Night
Make rival love, I leave ye soon,
( 188 )
SUMMER BY THE LAKESIDE
What time before the eastern light
The pale ghost of the setting moon
Shall hide behind yon rocky spines,
And the young archer, Morn, shall break
His arrows on the mountain pines.
And, golden-sandalled, walk the lake!
Farewell ! around this smiling bay
Gay-hearted Health, and Life in bloom.
With lighter steps than mine, may stray
In radiant summers yet to come.
But none shall more regretful leave
These waters and these hills than I:
Or, distant, fonder dream how eve
Or dawn is painting wave and sky;
How rising moons shine sad and mild
On wooded isle and silvering bay;
Or setting suns beyond the piled
And purpled mountains lead the day;
Nor laughing girl, nor bearding boy.
Nor full-pulsed manhood, lingering here,
( 189 )
SUMMER BY THE I^AKESIDE
Shall add, to life's abounding joy,
The charmed repose to suffering dear.
Still waits kind Nature to impart
Her choicest gifts to such as gain
An entrance to her loving heart
Through the sharp discipline of pain.
Forever from the Hand that takes
One blessing from us others fall;
And, soon or late, our Father makes
His perfect recompense to all !
O, watched by Silence and the Night,
And folded in the strong embrace
Of the great mountains, with the light
Of the sweet heavens upon thy face,
Lake of the Northland ! keep thy dower
Of beauty still, and while above
Thy solemn mountains speak of power.
Be thou the mirror of God's love.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
EVENING SONG
The sun is low, and fair Pasquaney sleeps, ^-
Breathe softly now your vespers, linden leaves.
The thrushes chant her evening lullaby.
And reeds and rushes murmuring reply,
"Pasquaney sleeps; hush, waves! no more she
grieves."
Thy bride is sleeping, gray, old mountain peak.
Guard her sweet beauty from thy rocks above.
Bend down thy shadows; kiss her rippling
hair.
For she is pure as is thy mountain air.
And fair as are the rosy lips of love.
Hush ! hush thy babbling, lawless mountain stream,
For evening mists are robing her in white.
The darkness veils the wooded landscape o'er.
And whispers from the ripple-haunted shore,
"Good night, sweet lake!" and echoes lisp, "Good
night."
( 191 )
IV
THE STREAMS
Up here is the river's cloud-cradle, down there is its fullness
low.
Lucy Larcom.
r
W THE MERRIMACK
VK From Thk Bridal of Penaoook
O CHILD of that white-crested mountain whose
springs
Gush forth in the shade of the cliff -eagle's wings,
Down whose slopes to the lowlands thy wild waters
shine.
Leaping gray walls of rock, flashing through the
dwarf pine;
From that cloud-curtained cradle so cold and so
lone,
From the arms of that wintry-locked mother of
stone,
By hills hung with forests, through vales wide and
free.
Thy mountain-born brightness glanced down to
the sea!
No bridge arched thy waters save that where the
trees
Stretched their long arms above thee and kissed
in the breeze:
( 195 )
THE MERRIMACK
No sound save the lapse of the waves on thy shores.
The phmging of otters, the light dip of oars.
Green-tufted, oak-shaded, by Amoskeag*s fall
Thy twin Uncanoonucs rose stately and tall,
Thy Nashua meadows lay green and unshorn.
And the hills of Pentucket were tasselled with com.
But thy Penacook valley was fairer than these.
And greener its grasses and taller its trees,
Ere the sound of an axe in the forest had rung.
Or the mower his scythe in the meadows had
swung.
In their sheltered repose looking out from the wood
The bark-builded wigwams of Penacook stood.
There glided the corn-dance, the council-fire shone.
And against the red war-post the hatchet was
thrown.
There the old smoked in silence their pipes, and
the young
To the pike and the white-perch their baited lines
flung;
( 196 )
p
I
THE MERRIMACK
There the boy shaped his arrows, and there the
shy maid
Wove her many-hued baskets and bright wampum
braid.
O Stream of the Mountains ! if answer of thine
Could rise from thy waters to question of mine,
Methinks through the din of thy thronged banks
a moan
Of sorrow would swell for the days which have
gone.
Not for thee the dull jar of the loom and the wheel.
The gliding of shuttles, the ringing of steel;
But that old voice of waters, of bird and of breeze.
The dip of the wild-fowl, the rustling of trees !
John Greenleaf Whittier.
THE PEMIGEWASSET
Such water do the gods distill
And pour down every hill
For their New England men;
A draught of this wild nectar bring,
And I '11 not taste the spring
Of Helicon again.
Henry David Thoreau.
( 198 )
SACO FALLS
Rush on, bold stream ! thou sendest up
Brave notes to all the woods around.
When morning beams are gathering fast.
And hushed is every human sound;
I stand beneath the sombre hill,
The stars are dim o'er fount and rill.
And still I hear thy waters play
In welcome music, far away;
Dash on, bold stream ! I love the roar
Thou sendest up from rock and shore.
*T is night in heaven, — the rustling leaves
Are whispering of the coming storm.
And, thundering down the river's bed,
I see thy lengthened, darkling form;
No voices from the vales are heard.
The winds are low, each little bird
Hath sought its quiet, rocking nest,
Folded its wings, and gone to rest:
And still I hear thy waters play
In welcome music far away.
( 199 )
SACO FALLS
Oh ! earth hath many a gallant show.
Of towering peak and glacier height,
But ne'er, beneath the glorious moon,
Hath nature framed a lovelier sight
Than thy fair tide with diamonds fraught,
When every drop with light is caught.
And, o'er the bridge, the village girls
Reflect below their waving curls.
While merrily thy waters play
In welcome music, far away !
James Thomas Fields,
MAD RIVER
TRAVELLEB
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar,
Mad River, O Mad River?
Wilt thou not pause and cease to pour
Thy hurrying, headlong waters o'er
This rocky shelf forever?
What secret trouble stirs thy breast?
Why all this fret and flurry?
Dost thou not know that what is best
In this too restless world is rest
From over-work and worry?
THE RIVER
What wouldst thou in these mountains seek,
O stranger from the city?
Is it perhaps some foolish freak
Of thine, to put the words I speak
Into a plaintive ditty?
( 201 )
MAD RIVER
TRAVELLER
Yes; I would learn of thee thy song.
With all its flowing numbers.
And in a voice as fresh and strong
As thine is, sing it all day long.
And hear it in my slumbers.
THE RIVER
A brooklet nameless and unknown
Was I at first, resembling
A little child, that all alone
Comes venturing down the stairs of stone.
Irresolute and trembling.
Later, by wayward fancies led,
For the wide world I panted;
Out of the forest, dark and dread.
Across the open fields I fled.
Like one pursued and haunted.
I tossed my arms, I sang aloud.
My voice exultant blending
( 202 )
MAD RIVER
With thunder from the passing cloud.
The wind, the forest bent and bowed,
The rush of rain descending.
I heard the distant ocean call.
Imploring and entreating;
Drawn onw^ard, o'er this rocky wall
I plunged, and the loud waterfall
Made answer to the greeting.
And now, beset with many ills,
A toilsome life I follow;
Compelled to carry from the hills
These logs to the impatient mills
Below there in the hollow.
Yet something ever cheers and charms
The rudeness of my labors;
Daily I water with these arms
The cattle of a hundred farms.
And have the birds for neighbors.
Men call me Mad, and well they may.
When, full of rage and trouble,
( 203 )
MAD RIVER
I burst my banks of sand and clay.
And sweep their wooden bridge away.
Like withered reeds or stubble.
Now go and write thy little rhyme.
As of thine own creating.
Thou seest the day is past its prime;
I can no longer waste my time;
The mills are tired of waiting.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I
SUGAR RIVER
Let Avon roll with Shakespeare's deathless glory.
And Thames as smooth as Pope or Thomson
glide.
The Tiber, Hellespont, in ancient story
Reflect Mars' triumphs, or fair Venus' pride;
While Scotia's every stream can boast its poet.
Whose patriotic muse would make us know it:
Yet what to me are all these puffs and praises,
Or streams of fame in foreign lands that lie?
But my soft-gliding, native river raises
A thousand images of home-felt joy;
And though their names in lofty lays may shine,
In sweetness they can never equal thine.
Oh ! may my verse, thy strength and beauty steal-
ing,
Flow like thy waters, and thy fame extend !
Thou minglest with the tide of life's young feel-
ing—
With thee my earliest recollections blend ; —
( 205 )
SUGAR RIVER
Thy bank my bower, nor Eden's loss was pondered*
Whilst there in infant innocence I wandered.
When strengthened reason woke imagination,
My book, my Croesus wealth, oft borne to thee,
In some loved nook was sought a fav'rite station,
The spreading hazel formed a canopy; —
The red-breast, sweetest bird that charms our
spring.
Joined his wild warble to thy murmuring.
Oft from the page mine eye, with rapture glancing.
Watched the light-springing trout at sportive
play,
Or the bright sunbeams o'er thy dimples dancing.
Or the blue sky that in thy bosom lay —
Here, the broad boughs athwart the dark stream
waving.
And there, the wild duck's brood their plumage
laving.
Nor must be past, while thousand thoughts en-
dear 'em.
Thy Falls, my school-day path so often crossed;
( 206 )
r
SUGAR RIVER
The wonder-hunter traveller would sneer 'em;
Beside Niag'ras, these, be sure, were lost.
Oh ! might I see that Anakim of wonders.
And watch its rainbowed spray, and hear its thun-
ders!
But then I deemed not there could be a vaster.
When anchor-ice (we called it so) had made
Thy pent-up waters rage and roar, while faster
Whirled the white-sheeted foam; though half
afraid.
Yet many a time I 've paused to gaze and listen.
Till on my breath congealed the frost would
glisten.
These days are gone, and with them gone forever
Are many a loved companion, friend most dear;
As float the autumn leaves along yon river.
One moment seen, then eddying disappear, —
So sing the race of men: thou, in thy prime.
Still roll'st unmarked, unmanacled by Time.
But farewell, now, sweet stream! In after ages,
When o'er the world Columbia sits a queen, —
( 207 )
SUGAR RIVER
Sung by her poets, honored by her sages
(An Athens without anarchy), — then seen.
And heardy too, shall some bard, though nursed on
mountains.
Strike the loud harp that wakes thy triple foun-
tains.
Sarah Josepha Hale.
HILLS IN MIST
Familiar is the scene, yet strange:
Field, roadside, tree, and stream,
Fringed with a blur of misty change, —
The landscape of a dream !
The hills are gone; the river winds
Under a fleecy bank:
The eye, through all its wandering, finds
Both earth and heaven a blank.
The picture tells a tale untrue:
Where muffling mists descend,
Where level meadows bound the view.
The horizon does not end.
For, glimpsed beyond the spectral trees.
Faint, penciled peaks appear;
And in this fresh, inspiring breeze
We know the mountains near.
Lucy Larcom.
( 209 )
SACO'S CRADLE
The Dismal Pool, another deep recess.
The Saco's cradle, where the new-born river
Feels the first ripple o'er its surface quiver.
And murmurs at the wild wind's harsh caress.
David McConnell Smyth.
( 210 )
FRANCONIA FROM THE
PEMIGEWASSET
Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil
Your brows, and lay your cloudy mantles by !
And once more, ere the eyes that seek ye fail.
Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden net-work in your belting woods.
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire ! So shall my soul receive
Haply the secret of your calm and strength.
Your unforgotten beauty interfuse
My common life, your glorious shapes and hues
And sun-dropped splendors at my bidding come.
Loom vast through dreams, and stretch in bil-
lowy length
rom the sea-level of my lowland home!
They rise before me ! Last night's thunder-gust
Roared not in vain : for where its lightnings thrust
Their tongues of fire, the great peaks seem so near,
Burned clean of mist, so starkly bold and clear,
( 211)
FRANCONIA FROM PEMIGEWASSET
I almost pause the wind in the pines to hear,
The loose rock's fall, the steps of browsing deer.
The clouds that shattered on yon slide-worn walls
And splintered on the rocks their spears of rain
Have set in play a thousand waterfalls,
Making the dusk and silence of the woods
Glad with the laughter of the chasing floods,
And luminous with blown spray and silver gleams,
While, in the vales below, the dry-lipped streams
Sing to the freshened meadow-lands again.
So, let me hope, the battle-storm that beats
The land with hail and fire may pass away
With its spent thunders at the break of day.
Like last night's clouds, and leave, as it retreats,
A greener earth and fairer sky behind,
Blown crystal-clear by Freedom's Northern
wind!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
THE FLUME
And farther down, from Garnsey*s lone abode.
By a rude footpath climb the mountain side.
Leaving below the traveller*s winding road.
To where the cleft hill yawns abrupt and wide.
As though some earthquake did its mass divide
In olden time; there view the rocky Flume,
Tremendous chasm ! rising side by side.
The rocks abrupt wall in the long, high room,
Echoing the wild stream's roar, and dark with
vapory gloom.
Harry Hibbard.
(213 )
THE MERRIMACK
Stream of my fathers! sweetly still
The sunset rays thy valley fill;
Breaking the dull continuous wood,
The Merrimack rolled down his flood;
Mingling that clear pellucid brook,
Which channels vast Agiochook
When spring-time's sun and shower unlock
The frozen fountains of the rock,
And more abundant waters given
From that pure lake, "The Smile of Heaven,"
Tributes from vale and mountain-side, —
With ocean's dark, eternal tide!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
( 214 )
MY MOUNTAIN
I SHUT my eyes in the snow-fall
And dream a dream of the hills :
The sweep of a host of mountains,
The flash of a hundred rills;
For a moment they crowd my vision;
Then, moving in troops along.
They leave me one still mountain-picture,
The murmur of one river's song.
*T is the musical Pemigewasset,
That sings to the hemlock -trees
Of the pines on the Profile Mountain,
Of the stony Face that sees.
Far down in the vast rock-hollows
The waterfall of the Flume,
The blithe cascade of the Basin,
And the deep Pool's lonely gloom.
All night, from the cottage-window
I can hear the river's tune;
(215 )
MY MOUNTAIN
But the hushed air gives no answer
Save the hemlocks' sullen rune.
A lamb*s bleat breaks through the stillness.
And into the heart of night. —
Afar and around, the mountains,
Veiled watchers, expect the light.
Then up comes the radiant morning
To smile on their vigils grand.
Still muffled in cloudy mantles
Do their stately ranges stand.
It is not the lofty Haystacks
Piled up by the great Notch-Gate,
Nor the glow of the Cannon Mountain,
That the Dawn and I await.
To loom out of northern vapors;
But a shadow, a pencilled line.
That grows to an edge of opal
Where earth-light and heaven-light shine.
Now rose- tints bloom from the purple;
Now the blue climbs over the green;
( 216 )
MY MOUNTAIN
Now, bright in its bath of sunshine.
The whole grand Shape is seen.
Is it one, or unnumbered summits, —
The Vision so high, so fair,
Hanging over the singing River
In the magical depths of air?
Ask not the name of my mountain!
Let it rise in its grandeur lone;
Be it one of a mighty thousand.
Or a thousand blent in one.
Would a name evoke new splendor
From its wrapping and folds of light,
Or a line of the weird rock-writing
Make plainer to mortal sight?
You have lived and learnt this marvel;
That the holiest joy that came
From its beautiful heaven to bless you.
Nor needed nor found a name.
Enough, on the brink of the river
Looking up and away, to know
(217 )
MY MOUNTAIN
That the Hill loves the Pemigewasset,
And is glad for its murmurous flow.
Perhaps, if the Campton meadows
Should attract your pilgrim feet
Up the summer road to the mountains,
You may chance my dream to meet:
Either mine, or one more wondrous:
Or perhaps you will look, and say
You behold only rocks and sunshine,
Be it dying or birth of day.
Though you find but the stones that build it,
I shall see through the snow-fall still.
Hanging over the Pemigewasset,
My glorified, dream-crowned Hill.
Lucy Larcom.
MARCH
From Thk Bridal of Fenacook
The wild March rains had fallen fast and long
The snowy mountains of the North among,
Making each vale a watercourse, each hill
Bright with the cascade of some new-made rill.
Gnawed by the sunbeams, softened by the rain.
Heaved underneath by the swollen current's strain.
The ice-bridge yielded, and the Merrimack
Bore the huge ruin crashing down its track.
John Greenleaf Whittier.
(219)
THE RIVER SACO
From Agiochook's granite steeps,
Fair Saco rolls in chainless pride,
Rejoicing as it laughs and leaps
Down the gray mountain's rugged side; — •
The stern rent crags and tall dark pines
Watch that young pilgrim flashing by.
While close above them frowns or shines
The black torn cloud, or deep blue sky.
Soon gathering strength, it swiftly takes
Through Bartlett's vales its tuneful way.
Or hides in Conway's fragrant brakes.
Retreating from the glare of day; —
Now, full of vigorous life, it springs
From the strong mountain's circling arms.
And roams, in wide and lucid rings.
Among green Fryeburg's woods and farms.
Here with low voice it comes and calls
For tribute from some hermit lake,
And here it wildly foams and falls.
Bidding the forest echoes wake; —
( 220 )
THE RIVER SACO
Now sweeping on it runs its race
By mound and mill in playful glee; —
Now welcomes, with its pure embrace.
The vestal waves of Ossipee.
At last, with loud and solemn roar.
Spurning each rocky ledge and bar.
It sinks where, on the sounding shore.
The broad Atlantic heaves afar; —
There, on old ocean's faithful breast.
Its wealth of waves it proudly flings,
And there its weary waters rest.
Clear as they left their crystal springs.
Sweet stream! it were a fate divine,
Till this world's toils and tasks were done.
To go, like those bright floods of thine.
Refreshing all, enslaved by none, —
To pass through scenes of calm and strife.
Singing, like thee, with holy mirth.
And close in peace a varied life.
Unsullied by one stain of earth.
James Gilborne Lyons.
DIANA'S BATHS
Thy course is broken here, O Woodland Stream,
By ledges rended deep in throes of old,
By boulders cast in figures manifold
When Nature graved the rocks with art supreme;
Here ever brood the shadow and the dream,
And lofty trees their mystic branches hold
Like sentinels above the waters cold.
While ever shineth here the wave's soft gleam.
Fair Dian laved in fountains in far days.
To crystal flood revealing form divine;
Fair Dian wandered free in woodland ways
And heard the harmonies of stream and pine;
Yet never on her raptured senses fell
Sound sweeter, sight more fair, in sylvan dell.
Frederick James Allen.
( 222 )
UP THE ANDROSCOGGIN
I _
^^^H I behold the river rush,
^^^K Hinting of lakes deep hidden
^^^y In a far-off mountain hush.
^K It flashes their mystery hither;
^B It carries it onward — whither?
'^^ Like the ocean-moan in the heart of a shell,
I hear that steady monotone tell
\^m How all great action reveals at length
Unguessed resources of lonely strength.
Swift traveler, hurrying river.
Whence hast thou come to-day .^^
From tenantless forests of Errol,
Green glooms of Magalloway;
White lilies, in careless order.
Thronged out through thy rippling border.
And the moss-hung limbs of the aged fir
Waved over thee weirdly, in farewell stir.
And the old cliff-eagle screamed after thee, —
Umbagog's wild nursling, escaped to the sea.
( 223 )
UP THE ANDROSCOGGIN
Where the foot-hills of Waumbek-Methna
Descend to the woodlands of Maine,
Down fliest thou, as unto thy kindred, —
A steed with a loosened rein.
No art may depict the fierce fashion
The impulse, the plunge, and the passion
Of brown waters bounding through barriers strait.
To gaze on the solemn, crowned summits, that wait.
Advance, then recede into distances gray.
While, moaning and sobered, thou goest thy way.
Beyond are the fields of Bethel,
The meadows of perfect green.
Where, a fugitive weary and listless,
Thou sleepest in silvery sheen.
But lower and less are the mountains
That dip their rough feet in thy fountains.
And thy onward journey, thou wilderness stream,
Is as when one wakes from a morning dream
Unto daily labor, while earth and air
Grow dull with a tinge of pervading care.
Thy song rolled clear, Androscoggin!
Like the rune of a seer it ran;
( 224 )
UP THE ANDROSCOGGIN
^m The story and life of a river
H| Are the life and the story of man.
The resolve, the romantic endeavor —
The dream that fulfills itself never —
With freshness that urges, and full veins that boil,
Down the hillsides of hope, over levels of toil.
Till the Will that moves under our purpose is done.
And the stream and the ocean have met, and are
one!
Lucy Larcom.
MY MERRIMACK
Though dew from the Franconia hills
Into thy crystal cup distills;
Though Winnepesaukee's ripples bright
And Pemigewasset's placid light.
Music of waterfall and brook.
Are in thy voice and in thy look:
Dearer companionship than thine.
Friends who have made earth half divine.
Voices that blend with thy wild birds
And woodland flower their loving words, —
Heart-shelter that is holy ground.
Beside thy waters have I found.
Lucy LarcoMc
( 226 )
OUR RIVER
We know the world is rich with streams
Renowned in song and story.
Whose music murmurs through our dreams
Of human love and glory :
We know the Arno's banks are fair,
And Rhine has castled shadows.
And, poet-tuned, the Doon and Ayr
Go singing down their meadows.
But while, unpictured and unsung
By painter or by poet.
Our river waits the tuneful tongue
And cunning hand to show it, —
We only know the fond skies lean
Above it, warm with blessing.
And the sweet soul of our Undine
Awakes to our caressing.
But blue skies smile, and flowers bloom on,
. And rivers still keep flowing,
( 227 )
OUR RIVER
The dear God still his rain and sun
On good and ill bestowing.
His pine-trees whisper, "Trust and wait!**
His flowers are prophesying
That all we dread of change or fate
His love is underlying.
And thou, O Mountain-born ! — no more
We ask the wise Allotter
Than for the firmness of thy shore.
The calmness of thy water,
The cheerful lights that overlay
Thy rugged slopes with beauty.
To match our spirits to our day
And make a joy of duty.
John Greenleaf Whittieb.
MERRIMACK RIVER AT IT!
SOURCE
O Merrimack, strong Merrimack,
All other streams may faint and lack.
Exhale in clouds through dreary lands
Or sink forlorn in desert sands;
New Hampshire's hills and island-sea
Are sureties for thy constancy !
Pemigewasset leaps from the mountains
Where the great Stone-Face looms grand and far;
Winnipesaukee fills at the fountains
Ossipee guards and Chocorua —
The sunny water that smiling lies
With its isles like a path to Paradise;
And where Kearsarge uplifts his shrine
They blend their deathless floods in thine.
Edna Dean Proctor.
( 229 )
TO CONNECTICUT RIVER
From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain
That links the mountain to the mighty main,
Fresh from the rock and welling by the tree.
Rushing to meet and dare and breast the sea.
Fair, noble, glorious river! in thy wave
The sunniest slopes and sweetest pastures lave;
The mountain torrent, with its wintry roar.
Springs from its home and leaps upon thy shore;
The promontories love thee, and for this
Turn their rough cheeks and stay thee for thy
kiss.
Stern, at thy source, thy northern guardians stand,
Rude rulers of the solitary land,
Wild dwellers by thy cold sequestered springs.
Of earth the feathers and of air the wings;
Their blasts have rocked thy cradle, and in storm
Covered thy couch and swathed in snow thy
form;
Yet, blessed by all the elements that sweep
The clouds above, or the unfathomed deep,
The purest breezes scent thy blooming hills,
The gentlest dews drop on thy eddying rills,
( 230 )
r
S
TO CONNECTICUT RIVER
By the mossed bank and by the aged tree
The silver streamlet smoothest glides to thee.
The young oak greets thee at the water's edge.
Wet by the wave, though anchored in the ledge.
Thou didst not shake, thou didst not shrink, when
late
The mountain-top shut down its ponderous gate.
Tumbling its tree-grown ruins to thy side.
An avalanche of acres at a slide.
Nor dost thou stay when winter's coldest breath
Howls through the woods and sweeps along the
heath, —
One mighty sigh relieves thy icy breast,
lAnd wakes thee from the calmness of thy rest.
Thy noble shores! where the tall steeple shines.
At midday, higher than thy mountain pines;
Where the white school-house, with its daily drill
Of sun-burnt children, smiles upon the hill;
Where the neat village grows upon the eye.
Decked forth in nature's sweet simplicity;
Where hard-won competence, the farmer's wealth.
Gains merit, honor, and gives labor health;
(231 )
TO CONNECTICUT RIVER
Where Goldsmith's self might send his exiled
band
To find a new "Sweet Auburn" in our land.
John Gardiner Calkins Brainard.
THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE
The mountains through the window-pane
Showered over you their glory;
The awkward farm-boy loved you, Jane:
You know the old, old story.
I never watch the sunset now
Upon those misty ranges.
But your bright lips, and cheek, and brow
Gleam out of all its changes.
I wonder if you see that chain
On memory's dim horizon;
There 's not a lovelier picture, Jane,
To rest even your sweet eyes on:
The Haystacks each an airy tent,
The Notch a gate of splendor;
And river, sky, and mountains blent
In twilight radiance tender.
I wonder, with a flitting pain,
If thoughts of me returning,
Are mingled with the mountains, Jane:
I stifle down that yearning. —
( 233 )
THE OLD SCHOOL-HOUSE
A rich man's wife, on you no claim
Have I, lost dreams to rally;
Yet Pemigewasset sings your name
Along its winding valley :
And once I hoped that for us twain
Might fall one calm life-closing;
That Campton hills might guard us, Jane,
In one green grave reposing.
They say the old man's heart is rock:
You never thought so, never !
And, loving you alone, I lock
The school-house door forever!
Lucy Larcom.
PEMIGEWASSET CLOUD-PICTURES
Ye clouds that float in air
Above the farmer's labors,
Dappling the meadows soft and fair.
Ye are my neighbors;
And ye bear
The semblance of my being there.
For I, like you,
Am but God's breath.
Floating across the blue
From birth to death.
I 've seen you white as Alpine snows.
To his repose.
As by the angels in a long relay,
I *ve seen the sun by you, like Nebo's prophet,
borne away.
And then have turned aside to pray.
Again, ye were to heaven a Bethel way;
Some angel-trodden stair
Let down mid-way in air
Along the golden aisles of the departing day, —
( 235 )
PEMIGEWASSET CLOUD-PICTURES
A dream surpassing sweet
A wearied human soul to greet,
Alone,
Head pillowed on a stone.
Jeremiah Eames Rankin.
THE MERRIMACK RIVER
The Indian loved thee as a gift divine.
To him thou flow'dst from the blest land that
smiled
Behind the sunset hills — the Indian heaven.
Where, on bright plains, eternal sunshine fell,
And bathed in gold the hills, and dells, and woods,
Of the blest hunting-grounds. With joy he drew
The finny stores from out thy swarming depths.
Or floated o'er thee in his light canoe.
And blest the kindly hand that gave him thee,
A never-failing good; a fount of life
And blessing to his race. And thou to him
Didst image forth the crystal stream that flows
From " out the throne of God and of the Lamb,"
The Christian's "water of the life divine."
Thy source was in the spirit-peopled clouds.
And to his untaught fancy thou didst spring
From Manitou, the overflowing hand.
From which all blessing comes, alike to him
Whose teaching comes from rude, material things,
( 237 )
THE MERRIMACK RIVER
Who worships 'neath the clear blue dome of
heaven,
As him who in a sculptured temple prays.
Thomas Russell Crosby.
THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
Hark! *t is our Northern nightingale that sings
In far-off leafy cloisters, high and cool.
Flinging his flute-notes bounding from the skies!
Thou wild musician of the mountain streams.
Most tuneful minstrel of the forest choir,
Bird of all grace and harmony of soul,
Unseen we hail thee for thy blissful voice.
Up in yon tremulous mist where morning wakes
Unnumbered shadows from their dark abodes.
Or in the woodland glade tumultuous grown.
With all the murmurous language of the trees.
No blither presence fills the vocal space.
The wandering rivulets dancing through the grass.
The gambols, low or loud, of insect life.
The cheerful call of cattle in the vales.
Sweet natural sounds of the contented hours, —
All seem more jubilant when thy song begins.
Deep in the shade we lie and listen long;
For human converse well may pause, and man
( 239 )
THE WHITE-THROATED SPARROW
Learn from such notes fresh hints of praise
That upward swelling from thy grateful tribe
Circle the hills with melodies of joy.
James Thomas Fields.
CLIMBING TO REST
Still must I climb, if I would rest:
The bird soars upward to his nest;
The young leaf on the tree-top high
Cradles itself within the sky.
I cannot in the valley stay:
The great horizons stretch away!
The very cliffs that wall me round
Are ladders unto higher ground.
Lucy Larcom.
(241 )
THE SACO
From Mary Garvin
From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the
lake that never fails.
Falls the Saco in the green lap of Conway's in-
tervales;
There, in wild and virgin freshness, its waters foam
and flow,
As when Darby Field first saw them, two hundred
years ago.
But, vexed in all its seaward course with bridges,
dams, and mills.
How changed is Saco's stream, how lost its free-
dom of the hills.
Since travelled Jocelyn, factor Vines, and stately
Champernoon
Heard on its banks the gray wolf's howl, the trum-
pet of the loon !
With smoking axle hot with speed, with steeds of
fire and steam,
( 242 )
THE SACO
Wide-waked To-day leaves Yesterday behind him
like a dream.
Still, from the hurrying train of Life, fly backward
far and fast
The milestones of the fathers, the landmarks of the
past.
But human hearts remain unchanged: the sorrow
and the sin.
The loves and hojjes and fears of old, are to our
own akin;
And if, in tales our fathers told, the songs our
mothers sung.
Tradition wears a snowy beard, Romance is always
young.
John Gbeenleaf Whittieb.
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
Of all the streams that seek the sea
By mountain pass, or sunny lea.
Now where is one that dares to vie
With clear Contoocook, swift and shy?
Monadnock's child, of snow-drifts born.
The snows of many a winter morn
And many a midnight, dark and still.
Heaped higher, whiter, day by day.
To melt, at last, with suns of May,
And steal, in tiny fall and rill,
Down the long slopes of granite gray;
Or filter slow through seam and cleft
When frost and storm the rock have reft.
To bubble cool in sheltered springs
Where the lone red-bird dips his wings,
And the tired fox that gains their brink
Stoops, safe from hound and horn, to drink.
And rills and springs, grown broad and deep.
Unite through gorge and glen to sweep
( 244 )
s:
I
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
In roaring brooks that turn and take
The over-floods of pool and lake.
Till, to the fields, the hills deliver
Contoocook's bright and brimming river!
O have you seen from Hillsboro' town
How fast its tide goes hurrying down.
With rapids now, and now a leap
Past giant boulders, black and steep,
Plunged in mid water, fain to keep
Its current from the meadows green?
But, flecked with foam, it speeds along;
And not the birch-tree*s silvery sheen.
Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines.
Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low.
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow
Where clematis, the fairy, twines.
Nor bowerj' islands where the breeze
Forever whispers to the trees.
Can stay its course, or still its song;
Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed.
The vales of Henniker are spread.
Their banks all set with golden grain,
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam —
C 245 )
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
In roaring brooks that turn and take
The over-floods of pool and lake,
Till, to the fields, the hills deliver
Contoocook's bright and brimming river!
O have you seen from Hillsboro' town
How fast its tide goes hurrying down,
With rapids now, and now a leap
Past giant boulders, black and steep.
Plunged in mid water, fain to keep
Its current from the meadows green?
But, flecked with foam, it speeds along;
And not the birch-tree's silvery sheen.
Nor the soft lull of murmuring pines.
Nor hermit thrushes, fluting low.
Nor ferns, nor cardinal flowers that glow
Where clematis, the fairy, twines.
Nor bowery islands where the breeze
Forever whispers to the trees.
Can stay its course, or still its song;
Ceaseless it flows till, round its bed.
The vales of Henniker are spread,
Their banks all set with golden grain.
Or stately trees whose vistas gleam —
C 245 )
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
A double forest — in the stream;
And winding *neath the pine-crowned hill
That overhangs the village plain.
By sunny reaches, broad and still.
It nears the bridge that spans its tide, —
The bridge whose arches low and wide
It ripples through, — and should you lean
A moment there, no lovelier scene
On England's Wye, or Scotland's Tay,
Would charm your gaze, a summer's day.
O of what beauty 't is the giver —
Contoocook's bright and brimming river!
And on it glides, by grove and glen.
Dark woodlands, and the homes of men.
With calm and meadow, fall and mill;
Till, deep and clear, its waters fill
The channels round that gem of isles
Sacred to captives' woes and wiles.
And eager half, half eddying back.
Blend with the lordly Merrimack;
And Merrimack whose tide is strong
Rolls gently, with its waves along,
Monadnock's stream that, coy and fair,
( 246)
CONTOOCOOK RIVER
Has come, its larger life to share.
And to the sea doth safe deliver
Contoocook's bright and brimming river.
Edna Dean Proctor.
THE FALLS OF THE SACO
From MoGG Megone
Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone,
Unmoving and tall in the light of the sky.
Where the spray of the cataract sparkles on high.
Lonely and sternly, save Mogg Megone?
Close to the verge of the rock is he.
While beneath him the Saco its work is doing.
Hurrying down to its grave, the sea.
And slow through the rock its pathway hewing !
Far down, through the mist of the falling river,
Which rises up like an incense ever,
The splintered points of the crags are seen.
With water howling and vexed between.
While the scooping whirl of the pool beneath
Seems an open throat, with its granite teeth!
John Greenleaf Whittier.
( 248 )
REVISITED
Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river.
Under thy banks of laurel bloom;
Softly and sweet, as the hour beseemeth,
Sing us the songs of peace and home.
Bring us the airs of hills and forests.
The sweet aroma of birch and pine,
Give us a waft of the north-wind laden
With sweetbrier odors and breath of kine!
Bring us the purple of mountain sunsets.
Shadows of clouds that rake the hills,
The green repose of thy Plymouth meadows.
The gleam and ripple of Campton rills.
Lead us away in shadow and sunshine.
Slaves of fancy, through all thy miles.
The winding ways of Pemigewasset,
And Winnipesaukee*s hundred isles.
Shatter in sunshine over thy ledges.
Laugh in thy plunges from fall to fall;
( 249 )
REVISITED
Play with thy fringes of elms, and darken
Under the shade of the mountain wall.
The cradle-song of thy hillside fountains
Here in thy glory and strength repeat;
Give us a taste of thy upland music,
Show us the dance of thy silver feet.
Into thy dutiful life of uses
Pour the music and weave the flowers:
With the song of birds and bloom of meadows
Lighten and gladden thy heart and ours.
For though by the Master's feet untrodden.
Though never His word has stilled thy waves.
Well for us may thy shores be holy,
With Christian altars and saintly graves.
And well may we own thy hint and token
Of fairer valleys and streams than these,
Where the rivers of God are full of water.
And full of sap are His healing trees!
John Greenleaf Whittieb.
CONNECTICUT RIVER
r
^B Fair river! not unknown to classic song,
^H Which still in varying beauty roll'st along,
^m Where first thy infant fount is faintly seen,
^B A line of silver *mid a fringe of green;
^^ Or where near towering rocks thy bolder tide.
To win the giant-guarded pass, doth glide;
The farmer, here, with honest pleasure sees
His orchards blushing to the fervid breeze.
His bleating flocks the shearer's care that need.
His waving woods the wintry hearth that feed.
His hardy steers that break the yielding soil,
His patient sons who aid their father's toil.
The ripening fields for joyous harvest drest.
And the white spire that points a world of rest.
Lydla Huntley Sigourney.
(251 )
SONGO RIVER
Nowhere such a devious stream,
Save in fancy or in dream,
Winding slow through brush and brake.
Links together lake and lake.
Walled with woods or sandy shelf.
Ever doubling on itself
Flows the stream, so still and slow,
That it hardly seems to flow.
Never errant knight of old,
Lost in woodland or on wold.
Such a winding path pursued
Through the sylvan solitude.
Never school-boy, in his quest
After hazel-nut or nest.
Through the forest in and out
Wandered loitering thus about.
In the mirror of its tide
Tangled thickets on each side
( 252 )
SONGO RIVER
Hang inverted, and between
Floating cloud or sky serene.
Swift or swallow on the wing
Seems the only living thing,
Or the loon, that laughs and flies
Down to those reflected skies.
Silent stream ! thy Indian name
Unfamiliar is to fame;
For thou hidest here alone,
Well content to be unknown.
But thy tranquil waters teach
Wisdom deep as human speech,
Moving without haste or noise
In unbroken equipoise.
Though thou tumest no busy mill.
And art ever calm and still.
Even the silence seems to say
To the traveller on his way : —
'Traveller, hurrying from the heat
Of the city, stay thy feet!
( 253 )
SONGO RIVER
Kest awhile, nor longer waste
Life with inconsiderate haste!
"Be not like a stream that brawls
Loud with shallow waterfalls,
But in quiet self-control
Link together soul and soul."
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
OUTSPURS
Again among the hills!
The jubilant unbroken
Long dreaming of the hills!
HovET.
LONGING
i
^^B O SET me free ! The flower-starred meadows woo,
^^1 The blithe winds call, the birds cry, "Come, O
^^K come!"
^V The brooklet's laughter, all the busy hum
^" Of insect-life — the fragrance stealing through
My wide-flung casement, white doves' murmuring
coo,
All fain would draw me forth! Alas! so dumb
I cannot answer them — but count the sum
Of their delights, and hate my bonds anew !
O set me free! The fields and winds and flowers
Are lonely for their playmate; and the hills
Miss my light foot, that chased the sunny hours
Down westward slopes, fleet rival of the rills !
O set me free to seek the forest bowers
Where Nature's mother-clasp my every longing
stills.
Josephine Augusta Cass.
(257)
MONADNOCK
Thousand minstrels woke within me,
"Our music 's in the hills;" —
Gayest pictures rose to win me.
Leopard-colored rills.
'*Up! — If thou knew'st who calls
To twilight parks of beech and pine.
High over the river intervals.
Above the ploughman's highest line,
Over the owner's farthest walls !
Up ! where the airy citadel
O'erlooks the surging landscape's swell !
Let not unto the stones the Day
Her lily and rose, her sea and land display.
Read the celestial sign!
Lo! the south answers to the north;
Bookworm, break this sloth urbane;
A greater spirit bids thee forth
Than the gray dreams which thee detain.
Mark how the climbing Oreads
Beckon thee to their arcades;
Youth, for a moment free as they.
Teach thy feet to feel the ground,
( 258)
MONADNOCK
yet arrives the wintry day
. ..en Time thy feet has bound
Take the bounty of thy birth,
Taste the lordship of the earth."
I heard, and I obeyed, —
Assured that he who made the claim.
Well known, but loving not a name,
Was not to be gainsaid.
Ere yet the summoning voice was still,
I turned to Cheshire's haughty hill.
From the fixed cone the cloud-rack flowed
Like ample banner flung abroad
To all the dwellers in the plains
Round about, a hundred miles.
With salutations to the sea and to the bordering
isles.
In his own loom's garment dressed.
By his proper bounty blessed.
Fast abides this constant giver.
Pouring many a cheerful river;
To far eyes, an aerial isle
Unploughed, which finer spirits pile.
Which morn and crimson evening paint )
( 259 )
MONADNOCK
For bard, for lover and for saint;
An eyemark and the country's core,
Inspirer, prophet evermore;
Pillar which God aloft had set
So that men might it not forget;
It should be their life's ornament,
And mix itself with each event;
Gauge and calendar and dial.
Weatherglass and chemic phial,
Garden of berries, perch of birds.
Pasture of pool-haunting herds,
Graced by each change of sum untold.
Earth-baking heat, stone-cleaving coldo
On the summit as I stood,
O'er the floor of plain and flood
Seemed to me, the towering hill
Was not altogether still,
But a quiet sense conveyed:
If I err not, thus it said: —
* Many feet in summer seek.
Oft, my far-appearing peak;
In the dreaded winter-time,
( 260 )
MONADNOCK
None save dappling shadows climb.
Under clouds, my lonely head.
Old as the sun, old almost as the shade;
And comest thou
To see strange forests and new snow.
And tread uplifted land?
And leavest thou thy lowland race.
Here amid clouds to stand?
And wouldst be my companion
Where I gaze, and still shall gaze,
Through tempering nights and flashing days.
When forests fall, and man is gone.
Over tribes and over times.
At the burning Lyre,
Nearing me.
With its stars of northern fire.
In many a thousand years?
• •••••••
*Monadnock is a mountain strong.
Tall and good my kind among;
But well I know, no mountain can,
Zion or Meru, measure with man.
For it is on zodiacs writ,
Adamant is soft to wit:
( 261 )
MONADNOCK
And when the greater comes again
With my secret in his brain,
I shall pass, as glides my shadow
Daily over hill and meadow.
'Through all time, in light, in gloom
Well I hear the approaching feet
On the flinty pathway beat
Of him that cometh, and shall come;
Of him who shall as lightly bear
My daily load of woods and streams,
As doth this round sky-clea,ving boat
Which never strains its rocky beams;
Whose timbers, as they silent float,
Alps and Caucasus uprear,
And the long Alleghanies here.
And all town-sprinkled lands that be.
Sailing through stars with all their history.
Every morn I lift my head,
See New England underspread,
South from Saint Lawrence to the Sound,
From Katskill east to the sea-bound.
Anchored fast for many an age,
( 262 )
MONADNOCK
I await the bard and sage.
Who, in large thoughts, like fair pearl-seed,
Shall string Monadnock like a bead.
He comes, but not of that race bred
Who daily climb my specular head.
Oft as morning wreathes my scarf.
Fled the last plumule of the Dark,
Pants up hither the spruce clerk
From South Cove and City Wharf.
I take him up my rugged sides.
Half-repentant, scant of breath, —
Bead-eyes my granite chaos show.
And my midsummer snow:
Open the daunting map beneath, —
All his county, sea and land.
Dwarfed to measure of his hand;
His day's ride is a furlong space.
His city-tops a glimmering haze.
I plant his eyes on the sky-hoop bounding;
* See there the grim gray rounding
Of the bullet of the earth
Whereon ye sail,
Tumbling steep
( 263 )
MONADNOCK
In the uncontinented deep/
He looks on that, and he turns pale.
'T is even so, this treacherous kite,
Farm-furrowed, town-incrusted sphere.
Thoughtless of its anxious freight,
Plunges eyeless on forever;
And he, poor parasite.
Cooped in a ship he cannot steer, —
Who is the captain he knows not.
Port or pilot trows not, —
Risk or ruin he must share.
I scowl on him with my cloud,
With my north wind chill his blood;
I lame him, clattering down the rocks;
And to live he is in fear.
Then, at last, I let him down
Once more into his dapper town,
To chatter, frightened, to his clan
And forget me if he can."
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
THE DISTANT RANGE
They beckon from their sunset domes afar.
Light's royal priesthood, the eternal hills :
Though born of earth, robed of the sky they are;
And the anointing radiance heaven distills
On their high brows, the air with glory fills.
The portals of the west are opened wide;
And lifted up, absolved from earthly ills,
All thoughts, a reverent throng, to worship glide.
The hills interpret heavenly mysteries.
The mysteries of Light — an open book
Of Revelation : see, its leaves unfold
With crimson borderings, and lines of gold.
Where the rapt reader, though soul-deep his look.
Dreams of a glory deeper than he sees!
Lucy Larcom.
( 265 )
THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY »
O, YOU left her arms so early, lusting for the hurly-
burly
Of the huge, grim, grinning town;
But the wander-fever died, and your weary spirit
cried.
Where the love of Earth, the Mother, hunts us
down;
Where the ledgers lay so high that they hurt the
aching eye,
While the worried brain toiled without rest,
O, then the Country called you, and her dear old
sights enthralled you.
And you longed to weep once more upon her
breast.
Don't you hear the voice from afar, dear boy.
Hear it wherever you roam? —
Loud on your track, *' Come back, come back.
Back to the hills of home!'*
Where the mocking whistles bluster, and the mon-
strous chimneys cluster,
* Copyright, 1904, by Frederic Lawrence Knowles.
( 2Q6 )
THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY
f
If ^°^ *^^ ™^^ looms curse and brawl.
Where the human torrent pours, weak and wretched
from the doors.
Don't you hear again the patient Mother call?
There's a whisper in your ear of the sounds that
once were dear —
Browsing cattle, barking dogs, bragging cocks;
O, the hungry horses neighing, O, the odors of the
haying,
O, the company and comfort of the flocks!
Yes, you hear the voice where the city roars
Through its narrow banks and high,
Wherever you roam, "Come home, come
home.
Home to my arms to die!"
Through the haste and fret of trade comes the
dream that cannot fade.
Of the never-laboring leisure of the ox,
Of the purple shadows deep, basking on the roofs
asleep,
Of the permanence and patience of the rocks !
Boy, forget the blistering street where the flag-
gings burn your feet;
( 267 )
THE CALL OF THE COUNTRY
Boy, forget the ugly trolley's vulgar song;
Still remains the land of wonder, — blue skies
over, green earth under,
Where the fainting soul again grows swift and
strong;
Still comes the cry of the Long Ago,
Of the Far-away-in-the-Past,
" Here be your rest, my breast, my breast.
Back on my breast at last!"
Frederic Lawrence Knowles.
RUMNEY HILLS
The rippling rills from Rumney Hills
Flow down to Baker's river,
And how my heart with rapture thrills
To see them flash and quiver;
For there, along those bonny banks,
Beside those sparkling waters,
The maiden walked who won my love.
The flower of Grafton*s daughters.
How proudly stand the mountains grand
On Rumney*s rocky border.
Upheaved by the Creator's hand
In eloquent disorder;
But beauty dwells in all the dells.
And e'en the mountains hoary
Give lessons of the power of God,
And glimpses of his glory.
There cradled, lived the girl who came
To bless my lowland dwelling;
How much I love the brave old place
My words arc weak in telling.
( 209 )
RUMNEY HILLS
But like a picture of the bright
Elysian lands of story,
The halo of a deathless love.
Surrounds it with its glory.
JosiAH Moody Fletcher.
AN INVITATION
The warm wide hills are miLfl3ed thick with green.
And fluttering swallows fill the air with song.
Come to our cottage-home. Lowly it stands,
Set in a vale of flowers, deep fringed with grass.
The sweet-brier (noiseless herald of the place)
Flies with its odor, meeting all who roam
With welcome footsteps to our small abode.
No splendid cares live here, — no barren shows.
The bee makes harbor at our perfumed door.
And hums all day his breezy note of joy.
Come, O my friend! and share our festal month.
And while the west wind walks the leafy woods.
While orchard-blooms are white in all the lanes,
And brooks make music in the deep cool dells,
Enjoy the golden moments as they pass.
And gain new strength for days that are to come.
James Thomas Fields.
( 271 )
MOUNT MORIAH FROM BETHEL
The mountains, gazed at from afar.
Take shape of our imaginings;
Outspread beyond this valley are
A lifted pair of purple wings,
That bear my thoughts away, away,
I know not whither, day by day.
Behind them, two gray pyramids
Cut sharp and deep the western sky.
With one pale summit, that forbids
His brother peaks to climb too high.
Because he will have mate nor peer
His lonely tryst with heaven to hear.
These are the heights that crown the land;
Step after step, their slopes descend
Out of the clouds, a stairway grand,
Until with common earth they blend.
Where the broad meadow spreads before
Their bases, like an emerald floor.
( 272 )
MOUNT MORIAH FROM BETHEL
The men who tilled these fields of old,
Called the place Bethel : well might seem
That mountain stairway to unfold
The ladder set in Jacob's dream;
And the wide pinions outlined there.
An angel's, winnowing the air.
The farther summits proudly oft
Retreat in clouds, and mist, and rain.
Leaving those great wings poised aloft:
Forward they bend, with steadfast strain,,
As if to bear on through the sky
Some burden of glad mystery.
And sometimes of their shape is left.
Only one vigorous, broken line.
Half hidden by a vapory weft;
The dim sketch of a grand design.
Whose veiled proportions still suggest
Motion and strength, upheld in rest.
My fancy often paints a Face,
Benign with majesty and light,
Looking out midway through the space
Where the wings part for onward flight: /
( 273 )
MOUNT MORIAH FROM BETHEL
Oh, wondrous beyond mortal guess
Is that elusive loveliness !
Yet vainly imagery of mine
Dreams its faint picture of the Love
That hovers, with a warmth divine,
These human lives of ours above.
And from the hardships of our lot
Uplifts us, when we know it not.
Out of the very ground we tread
Visions of heavenly hope arise.
God made the earth; it is not dead;
It shares the glory of the skies :
Look! even in vague, half-shapen things
A soul is struggling up for wings!
Lucy Larcom.
THE VILLAGE LIGHTS
Only a little village street,
Lying along a mountain's side;
Only the silences which meet
When weary hands and weary feet
By night's sweet rest are satisfied;
Only the dark of summer nights;
Only the commonest of sights,
The glimmer of the village lights !
I know not, then, why it should bring
Into my eyes such sudden tears.
But to the mountain's sheltering
The little village seems to cling,
As child, all unaware of fears,
Unconscious that it is caressed,
In perfect peace and perfect rest
Asleep upon its mother's breast.
No stir, no sound! The shadows creep.
The old and young, in common trust.
Are lying down to wait, asleep,
( 275 )
THE VILLAGE LIGHTS
While Life and Joy will come to keep
With Death and Pain what tryst they must.
O faith ! for faith almost too great !
Come slow, O day of evil freight !
O village hearts, sleep well, sleep late!
Helen Hunt Jackson.
I
UP TO THE HILLS
From tame and level lowlands,
From the restless, restless sea,
My spirit reaches upward,
Calm mountain land, to thee!
Through the woodlands, through the farm-
lands,
I speed — yet all too slow;
And the rivers flow to meet me,
Flow to greet me, as I go.
Now green hills are beginning
To rise on every side;
And distant, beckoning summits
Glance shyly, and then hide.
Now they are all about me.
In their very arms I stand;
Their strength, their peace, their beauty.
Fold me on every hand.
For me they have been waiting.
Patient, unchanging, true;
( 277 ) .
UP TO THE HILLS
Through all the long year's absence
My faithful heart they knew.
How on their tranquil faces.
Immobile as they seem.
The loving eye still traces
The shifting thought and dream, —
Their sunny smile's enchantment.
Their sad cheeks' mournful curve.
Their glowing, breathing rapture.
Their secret, dark reserve !
How noble is their friendship !
They hold my freedom dear;
They encircle and they guard me.
Yet they will not come too near!
Samuel Longfellow,
NEAR KEARSARGE
COPYRIGHT BY KIMBALL, CO.tC OKD
The birches keep
Candlemas all the summer-tide. — Gannett
KEARSARGE
O LIFT thy head, thou mountain lone.
And mate thee with the sun !
The rosy clouds are valeward blown.
Thy stars, that near at midnight shone.
Gone heavenward one by one,
And half of earth, and half of air.
Thou risest vast and gray and bare
And crowned with glory. Far southwest
Monadnock thrills to see.
For all its trees and towering crest
And clear Contoocook from its breast
Poured down for wood and lea.
How statelier still, through frost and dew.
Thy granite cleaves the distant blue.
And high to north, from fainter sky,
Franconia's cliffs look down;
Home to their crags the eagles fly.
Deep in their caves the echoes die.
The sparkling waters frown.
And the Great Face that guards the glen
Pales with the pride of mortal men.
( 279 )
KEARSARGE
Nay, from their silent, crystal seat
The White Hills scan the plain;
Nor Saco's leaping, lightsome feet.
Nor Ammonoosuc, wild to greet
The meadows and the main,
Nor snows nor thunders can atone
For splendor thou hast made thine own.
For thou hast joined the immortal band
Of hills and streams and plains
Shrined in the songs of native land, —
Linked with the deeds of valor grand
Told when the bright day wanes, —
Part of the nation's life art thou,
O mountain of the granite brow!
Not Pelion when the Argo rose,
Grace of its goodliest trees;
Nor Norway hills when woodmen's blows
Their pines sent crashing through the snows
That kings might rove the seas;
Nor heights that gave the Armada's line.
Thrilled with a joy so pure as thine.
( 280 )
KEARSARGE
Bold was the ship thy name that bore;
Strength of the hills was hers;
Heart of the oaks thy pastures store,
The pines that hear the north wind roar,
The dark and tapering firs;
Nor Argonaut nor Viking knew
Sublimer daring than her crew.
And long as Freedom fires the soul
Or mountains pierce the air,
Her fame shall shine on honor's scroll;
Thy brow shall be the pilgrim's goal
Uplifted broad and fair;
And, from thy skies, inspiring gales
O'er future seas shall sweep our sails.
Still summer keep thy pastures green.
And clothe thy oaks and pines;
Brooks laugh thy rifted rocks between;
Snows fall serenely o'er the scene
And veil thy lofty lines;
While crowned and peerless thou dost stand.
The monarch of our mountain-land.
Edna Dean Ppoctor.
CROW'S NEST
Building our beacon fire, we spread our feast
On the bare cliff high up against the sky;
Eastward a few lone clouds went sailing by,
As more and more the sunset glow increased,
And every sound of bird and leaf had ceased;
Far down below, we could the stream espy.
Seeming at rest all motionless to lie;
And life from every burden seemed released.
Range beyond range, we saw the wooded heights;
And far away, backed against paly gold,
Their rightful lords — unspeakable delights! —
Their purple splendor sturdily uphold,
While climbing slow, the moon and eve 's first star
Led every thought to heights more cool and far.
John White Chadwick.
( 282 )
ON THE LEDGE
Restored unto life by the sun and the breeze!
Rich balsams float down from the resinous trees.
Stirring into quick health every pulse of the air:
Released once again from imprisoning care.
At the gate of green pastures my soul lieth free.
And to go in or out is refreshment to me.
Lo, yonder is Paradise! Softly below.
The river that watereth Eden doth flow !
I behold, through blue gaps in the mountainous
west,
Height ascending on height, the abodes of the blest:
And I cannot tell whether to climb were more
sweet
Than to lap me in beauty spread out at my feet.
There sways a white cloud on yon loftiest peak,
A wind from beyond it is fanning my cheek;
Through the oak and the birch glides a musical
shiver,
A ripple just silvers the dusk of the river.
( 283 )
ON THE LEDGE
— Though I may not know how, each is part of
the whole
Perfect flood-tide of peace that is brimming my
soul.
Here is shelter and outlook, deep rest and wide
room;
The pine woods behind, breathing balm out of
gloom ;
Before, the great hills over vast levels lean, —
A glory of purple, a splendor of green.
As a new earth and heaven, ye are mine once again.
Ye beautiful meadows and mountains of Maine !
Lucy Larcom.
h
MONADNOCK FROM WACHUSETT
I WOULD I were a painter, for the sake
Of a sweet picture, and of her who led,
A fitting guide, with reverential tread.
Into that mountain m^^stery. First a lake
Tinted with sunset; next the wavy lines ^
Of far receding hills; and yet more far,
Monadnock lifting from his night of pines
His rosy forehead to the evening star.
• ••••••••
John Greenleaf Whittier.
(285 )
THE FAREWELL
Now ends the hour's communion, near and high;
We have heard whispers from the mountain's
heart,
And Hfe henceforth is nobler. With a sigh
Of grateful sadness, let us now depart,
And seek our lower levels. Rills that start
From this Hill's bosom, there reflect the sky.
And his deep shadows greener grace impart
To the sweet fields which low beneath him lie.
One farewell glance from far. The hills are fled !
Hid in the folds of yon funereal cloud !
A moment leans the Loftiest from his shroud : —
"Our thunders purify the vales," he saith:
" 'T is not alone by smiles that life is fed :
Awe fills the sanctuary of deep faith."
Lucy Larcom.
( 286 )
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RETURN TO THE HILLS
Like a music of triumph and joy
Sounds the roll of the wheels,
And the breath of the engine laughs out
In loud chuckles and peals,
Like the laugh of a man that is glad
Coming homeward at night;
I lean out of the window and nod
To the left and the right.
To my friends in the fields and the woods;
Not a face do I miss;
The sweet asters and browned golden-rod.
And that stray clematis,
Of all vagabonds dearest and best.
In most seedy estate;
I am sure they all recognize me;
If I only could wait,
I should hear all the welcome which now
In their faces I read,
"O true lover of us and our kin.
We all bid thee God speed!"
O my mountains, no wisdom can teach
Me to think that ye care
( 287 )
RETURN TO THE HILLS
Nothing more for my steps than the rest.
Or that they can have share
Such as mine in your royal crown-lands.
Unencumbered of fee;
In your temples with altars unhewn.
Where redemption is free;
In your houses of treasure, which gold
Cannot buy if it seek;
And your oracles, mystic with words.
Which men lose if they speak!
Ah ! with boldness of lovers who wed
I make haste to thy feet,
And as constant as lovers who die.
My surrender repeat;
And I take as the right of my love
And I keep as its sign,
An ineflFable joy in each sense
And new strength as from wine,
A seal for all purpose and hope.
And a pledge of full light,
Like a pillar of cloud for my day
And of fire for my night.
Helen Hunt Jackson.
THOMPSON'S GROVE
The traffic of the busy world goes by.
The horse of iron daily thunders past
Upon his endless round, from ocean vast
Unto the kingly hills, from mountains high
Down to the shore where princely cities lie.
Stern industry while human need shall last
Upon the primal world her spell shall cast,
And rear her banners 'neath the holy sky.
Sweet Grove, where man may come and refuge
find,
The sacred silences shall hush the pain
That broodeth in the breast; thy spirit, old
As nature, new as morn, shall touch the mind
With influence Lethean : here, come loss or gain,
Earth's rarest visions shall my heart behold.
Frederick James Allen.
( 289 )
DAYS ON MONADNOCK
And great those days
And splendid on the hills, when the wild winds
Forever sweep the clouds, — at once re-formed.
From off the plateau's slope, — and at a breath
Up start the sunlit valleys sweet with morn, —
The hamlet's homely grange, the dappled shades
Thrown from the sultry clouds that sail its heaven;
And in a second instant the wild mists
Instantly obscure; the valley vanishes, —
Gone as a flitting vision from the skies.
Poised in my airy pinnacle, I see
(The dainty swallow whirring swiftly by)
At dizzy depths, far in the valley's womb.
Through zigzag coil of alders, a black thread.
The serpentine progression of a stream,
Playing its rival flute-notes all the year;
See the herds feeding on the tiresome hills, —
Enormous to the herdsmen, — and to me
As flat and motionless as I to them
Obliterate.
William Ellery Channing.
( 290 )
THE BELLS OF BETHLEHEM
How sweet the chimes this Sunday morn,
*Mid autumn's requiem.
Across the mountain valleys borne, —
The bells of Bethlehem!
"Come join with us,'* they seem to say,
"And celebrate this hallowed day!"
Our hearts leap up with glad accord —
Judea's Bethlehem strain.
That once ascended to the Lord,
Floats back to earth again.
And round our hills the echoes swell
To "God with us, Emmanuel!"
O Power Divine, that led the star
To Mary's sinless child!
O ray from heaven that beamed afar
And o'er his cradle smiled !
Help us to worship now with them
Who hailed the Christ at Bethlehem.
James Thomas Fields.
( 291 )
MONADNOCK
The merest bulge above the horizon's rim
Of purplish blue, which you might think a cloud
Low lying there, — that is Monadnock proud.
Full seventy miles away. But far and dim
Although it be, I still can without glass
Descry, as I were standing happy there
Upon the topmost ledges gray and bare,
Something which with the shadows will not pass, —
A vision that abides : a fair young girl
Lying her length; her hair all disarrayed
By the bold mountain wind; her cheeks aglow;
As if that rocky summit should unfurl
A rose of June ! And what if I had said,
"Thrice fair Monadnock with her lying so!'*
John White Chadwick.
( 292 )
BURNS HILL
I
fTuE j-ears have flown since then.
The busy hands of men
Have torn the woods and fettered all the streams;
Yet still in the sunset's glow
The lake smiles from below,
And in the west the mountain monarch gleams.
The churchyard now is old.
Its sacred bounds now hold
The dust of all that little band of yore;
The stones are black with moss,
The tangled bushes cross
Above the maiden's grave and block the door.
Yet in this northern land,
Amid these mountains grand,
I know no spot more beautiful, more bright;
No spot more fit to keep
The dead in their long sleep
Till Resurrection Morn shall banish night.
Fred Lewis Pattee.
( 293 )
MONADNOCK IN OCTOBER
Uprose Monadnock in the northern blue.
A glorious minster builded to the Lord !
The setting sun his crimson radiance threw
On crest, and steep, and wood, and valley sward,
Blending their myriad hues in rich accord.
Till, like the wall of heaven, it towered to view.
Along its slope, where russet ferns were strewn
And purple heaths, the scarlet maples flamed,
And reddening oaks and golden birches shone, —
Resplendent oriels in the black pines framed.
The pines that climb to woo the winds alone.
And down its cloisters blew the evening breeze,
Through courts and aisles ablaze with autumn
bloom.
Till shrine and portal thrilled to harmonies
Now soaring, dying now in glade and gloom.
And with the wind was heard the voice of
streams, —
Constant their Aves and Te Deums be, —
Lone Ashuelot murmuring down the lea,
And brooks that haste where shy Contoocook
gleams
( 294 )
w
K MONADNOCK IN OCTOBER
Through groves and meadows, broadening to the
sea.
Then holy twilight fell on earth and air.
Above the dome the stars hung faint and fair.
And the great minster hushed its shrines in prayer;
While all the lesser heights kept watch and ward
H About Monadnock builded to the Lord !
B Edna Dean Pboctor.
FROM THE HILLS
From white brows flushed with heavenly morning-
red.
From faces beautiful with prophecy
Of the sun-gospel a new day shall see,
From cloud-wrapt shape and light-anointed head.
Out of whose gracious mystery words are said
That wake abysmal voices, and set free
Reverberations of eternity,
Down to the level ocean are we sped,
Where broken tints in wide illusion blend,
And all sounds gather into monotone.
Always unto great seers have mountains shown
Their Founder and Uprearer as man's friend.
The hills are a religion; but the sea,
O Truth, is Doubt's unanswered moan. to thee!
Lucy Larcom.
( 296 )
MOUNT PLEASANT
'T WAS a glorious scene, — the mountain height
Aflame with sunset's colored light.
Even the black pines, grim and old,
Transfigured stood with crowns of gold.
There on a hoary crag we stood
When the tide of gloiy was at its flood.
Close by our feet, the mountain's child.
The delicate harebell, sweetly smiled.
Lifting its cups of tender blue
From seam and rift where the mosses grew.
The everlasting's mimic snow
Whitened the dry, crisp grass below;
WTiile the yellow flames of golden-rod
Through clumps of starry asters glowed,
And the sumac's ruddy fires burned through
Tangled hazels of tawny hue.
( 297 )
MOUNT PLEASANT
Below stretched wide the skirt of wood
Where the maple's green was dashed with blood;
Where the beech had donned a golden brown.
And the ash was sad in a purple gown,
And the straight birch stems gleamed white be-
tween
The sombre spruces, darkly green.
Clasping the mountain's very feet,
The small lake lay, a picture-sheet,
Where the pomp of sunset cloud and shine
Glowed in a setting of dark old pine.
Far in the west blue peaks arose, —
One with a crest of glittering snows, —
With hill and valley and wood between.
And lakes transfused with the sunset sheen.
Rose Sanborn.
CASCADE IN THE FLUME
Such water do the gods distill
TboKau
CARDIGAN
Hast ever stood upon the wind-swept peak
Of Cardigan and looked adown the rocks?
Sheer off they make one bold and mighty leap.
And one in midair may look down and see
The ragged ledge and tops of mighty trees
Within the ancient forest far below,
While on the brink a few storm-dwarfed shrubs
Stretch out their arms in pity to the blast,
.And clutch for life the crevice of the rock.
Fred Lewis Pattee.
( 299 )
THE STRENGTH OF THE HILLS
A MIDNIGHT hush pervadcs the air,
No birdhng chirps, no leaflet stirs;
Midsummer heat is everywhere,
Even among the firs.
What far-off sound grows on the ear?
Through wild ravines it sweeps along.
As if some swift-winged bird drew near
To wake the night with song.
A rustle fills the birches tall;
A sudden coolness fans the cheek:
Monadnock's breath bears life to all
Beneath his rugged peak.
For here each day is born anew,
A chaste Diana, fresh and fair.
Whose arrows, dipped in forest dew,
Transfix each worldly care.
Mary Thacher Higginson.
( 300 )
MONADNOCK
Upon the far-off mountain's brow
The angry storm has ceased to beat.
And broken clouds are gathering now,
In lowly reverence round his feet.
I saw their dark and crowded bands
On his firm head in wrath descending.
But there once more redeemed he stands.
And heaven's clear arch is o'er him bending.
I *ve seen him when the rising sun
Shone like a watch-fire on the height;
I 've seen him when the day was done,
Bathed in the evening's crimson light!
I've seen him in the midnight hour.
When all the world beneath were sleeping,
Like some lone sentry in his tower.
His patient watch in silence keeping.
And there, as ever, steep and clear,
That pyramid of nature springs!
He owns no rival turret near,
No sovereign but the King of kings.
( ?'01 )
MONADNOCK
While many a nation hath passed by.
And many an age, unknown in story.
His walls and battlements on high
He rears, in melancholy glory.
And let a world of human pride.
With all its grandeur, melt away.
And spread around his rocky side
The broken fragments of decay.
Serene his hoary head will tower.
Untroubled by one thought of sorrow;
He numbers not the weary hour.
He welcomes not nor fears to-morrow.
Farewell! I go my distant way;
Perhaps, not far in future years.
The eyes that glow with smiles to-day.
May gaze upon thee, dim with tears.
Then let me learn from thee to rise.
All time and chance and change defying;
Still pointing upward to the skies.
And on the inward strength relying.
If life before my weary eye
Grows fearful as an angry sea,
( 302 )
MONADNOCK
Thy memory shall suppress the sigh
For that which never more can be.
Inspiring all within the heart
With firm resolve and strong endeavor.
To act a brave and faithful part.
Till life's short warfare ends forever.
William Bourne Oliver Peabody.
MOUNT AGASSIZ
Before this mountain bore his well-loved name
Whose greatness runs through both the hemi-
spheres.
Whose life-work, after death, but swells his fame,
Whose sudden loss set Science' self in tears, —
I stood upon it; now if I were there
Among the flocking thoughts would this one brood.
Mount Agassiz ! It must have known such prayer
As rose at Penikees where once he stood
Pleading with Heaven, yet uttering not a word.
Leading the face and spirit of that throng
On through an awe-hinged gate, that swung un-
heard.
Into His presence where all souls belong : —
So doubtless here, with noisy words unshod,
Went prayer in Horeb silence unto God.
Charlotte Fiske Bates.
( 304 )
SUNRISE ON THE HILLS
I STOOD upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch
Was glorious with the sun's returning march,
And woods were brightened, and soft gales
Went forth to kiss the sun-clad vales.
The clouds were far beneath me; bathed in lights
They gathered midway round the wooded height.
And, in their fading glory, shone
Like hosts in battle overthrown.
As many a pinnacle, with shifting glance,
Through the gray mist thrust up its shattered
lance.
And rocking on the cliff was left
The dark pine blasted, bare, and cleft.
The veil of cloud was lifted, and below
Glowed the rich valley, and the river's flow
Was darkened by the forest's shade.
Or glistened in the white cascade ;
Where upward, in the mellow blush of day.
The noisy bittern wheeled his spiral way.
I heard the distant waters dash,
I saw the current whirl and flash,
( 305 )
SUNRISE ON THE HILLS
And richly, by the blue lake's silver beach,
The woods were bending with a silent reach.
Then o'er the vale, with gentle swell,
The music of the village bell
Came sweetly to the echo-giving hills;
And the wild horn, whose voice the woodland fills.
Was ringing to the merry shout
That faint and far the glen sent out,
Where, answering to the sudden shot, thin smoke.
Through thick-leaved branches, from the dingle
broke.
If thou art worn and hard beset
With sorrows, that thou wouldst forget,
If thou wouldst read a lesson, that will keep
Thy heart from fainting and thy soul from sleep.
Go to the woods and hills ! No tears
Dim the sweet look that Nature wears.
Henry Wads worth Longfellow.
THE DISTANT HILLS
With frontier strength ye stand your ground.
With grand content ye circle round.
Tumultuous silence for all sound.
Ye distant nursery of rills,
Monadnock and the Peterboro hills; —
Firm argument that never stirs,
Outcircling the philosophers, —
Like some vast fleet.
Sailing through rain and sleet.
Through winter's cold and summer's heat;
Still holding on upon your high emprise.
Until ye find a shore amid the skies.
While we enjoy a lingering ray.
Ye still o'ertop the western day.
Reposing yonder on God's croft
Like solid stacks of hay;
So bold a line as ne'er was writ
On any page by human wit.
Henry David Thoreau.
( 307 )
THE HILLS OF DARTMOUTH
Again among the hills!
The shaggy hills !
The clear arousing air comes like a call
Of bugle notes across the pines, and thrills
My heart as if a hero had just spoken.
Again among the hills!
The jubilant unbroken
Long dreaming of the hills !
Far off, Ascutney smiles as one at peace;
And over all
The golden sunlight pours and fills
The hollow of the earth, like a God's joy.
Again among the hills!
The tranquil hills
That took me as a boy
And filled my spirit with the silences !
O indolent, far-reaching hills, that lie
Secure in your own strength, and take your ease
Like careless giants 'neath the summer sky —
What is it to you, O hills,
( 308 )
fr
THE HILLS OF DARTMOUTH
That anxious men should take thought for the
morrow?
What has your might to do with thought or sor-
row
Or cark and cumber of conflicting wills?
Praise be to you, O hills, that you can breathe
Into our souls the secret of your power!
He is no child of yours, he never knew
Your spirit — were he born beneath
Your highest crags — who bears not every hour
The might, the calm of you
About him, that sublime
Unconsciousness of all things great, —
Built on himself to stand the shocks of Time
And scarred, not shaken, by the bolts of Fate.
Night on the hills !
And the ancient stars emerge.
The silence of their mighty distances
Compels the world to peace. Now sinks the surge
Of life to a soft stir of mountain rills.
And over the swarm and urge
Of eager men sleep falls and darkling ease.
( 309 )
THE HILLS OF DARTMOUTH
Night on the hills!
Dark mother-Night, draw near;
Lay hands on us and whisper words of cheer
So softly, oh, so softly ! Now may we
Be each as one that leaves his midnight task
And throws his casement oj>en; and the air
Comes up across the lowlands from the Sea
And cools his temples, as a maid might ask
With shy caress what speech would never dare;
And he leans back to her demure desires.
And as a dream sees far below
The city with its lights aglow
And blesses in his heart his brothers there;
Then toward the eternal stars again aspires.
Richard Hovey.
MONADNOCK FROM AFAR
Dark flower of Cheshire garden,
Red evening duly dyes
Thy sombre head with rosy hues
To fix far-gazing eyes.
Well the Planter knew how strongly
Works thy form on human thought;
I muse what secret purpose had he
To draw all fancies to this spot.
Ralph Waldo Emerson.
(sn)
BALD-CAP REVISITED
Eleven years, and two fair months beside,
Full to the brim with various love and joy,
My life has known since last I drew apart
Into this huge sky-shouldering mountain dome,
And, listening, heard the winds among the pines
Making a music as of countless choirs,
Chanting in sweet and solemn unison;
And, standing here where God's artificers.
Angels of frost and fire and sun and storm,
Have made a floor with nameless gems inlaid,
Saw, like a roof, the slopes of living green
Go cleaving down to meet the lower hills, —
Firm-buttressed walls, their bases overgrown
With meadow-sweet and ferns and tangled vines.
And all that makes the roadsides beautiful;
While, all around me, other domes arose.
Girded with towers and eager pinnacles.
Into the silent and astonished air.
Full oft, since then, up-looking from below.
As naught to me has been the pleasantness
Of meadows broad, and, *mid them, flowing wide
The Androscoggin's dark empurpled stream,
( 312 )
If BALD-CAP REVISITED
Enamored of thine awful loveliness,
Thy draperies of forest overspread
With shadows and with silvery, shining mists.
Thy dark ravines and cloud-conversing top.
Where it would almost seem that one might hear
The talk of angels in the happy blue ; —
And so, in truth, my heart has heard to-day.
Dear sacred Mount, not thine alone the charm
By which thou dost so overmaster me.
But something in thy lover's beating heart,
Something of memories vague and fond and sweet.
Something of what he cannot be again,
Something of sharp regret for vanished joys.
And faces that he may no more behold,
And voices that he listens for in vain.
And feet whose welcome sound he hears no more,
And hands whose touch could make his being
thriU
With love's dear rapture of delicious pain, —
Something of all the years that he has lived.
Of all the joy and sorrow he has known.
Since first with eager feet and heart aflame
He struggled up thy steep and shaggy sides,
(313 )
BALD-CAP REVISITED
Sun-flecked, leaf-shaded realms of life in death.
And stood, as now upon thy topmost crest.
Trembling with joy and tender unto tears; —
Something of all these things mingles with thee, —
Green of thy leaves and whiteness of thy clouds.
Rush of thy streams and rustle of thy pines, —
With all thy strength and all thy tenderness.
Till thou art loved not for thyself alone.
But for the love of many who are gone.
And most of all for one who still remains
To make all sights more fair, all sounds more sweet.
All life more dear and glad and wonderful.
John White Chadtvick.
THE PRESENCE
The mountain statelier lifts his blue-veiled head.
While, drawing near, we meet him face to face.
Here, as on holy ground, we softly tread;
Yet, with a tender and paternal grace,
He gives the wild flowers in his lap a place:
They climb his sides, as fondled infants might.
And wind around him, in a light embrace,
Their summer drapery, pink and clinging white.
Great hearts have largest room to bless the small;
Strong natures give the weaker home and rest :
So Christ took little children to his breast.
And, with a reverence more profound, we fall
In the majestic presence that can give
Truth's simplest message: "*T is by love ye live."
Lucy Larcom.
(315 )
THE MOUNTAIN MAID
O THE Mountain Maid, New Hampshire!
Her steps are light and free,
Whether she treads the lofty heights
Or follows the brooks to the sea!
Her eyes are clear as the skies that hang
Over her hills of snow.
And her hair is dark as the densest shade
That falls where the fir-trees grow —
The fir-trees slender and sombre
That climb from the vales below.
Sweet is her voice as the robin's
In a lull of the wind of March
Wooing the shy arbutus
At the roots of the budding larch;
And rich as the ravishing echoes
On still Franconia's lake
When the boatman winds his magic horn
And the tongues of the wood awake.
While the huge Stone-Face forgets to frown
And the hare peeps out of the brake.
( 316 )
I
THE MOUNTAIN MAID
The blasts of stormy December
But brighten the bloom on her cheek,
And the snows build her statelier temples
Than to goddess were reared by the Greek.
She welcomes the fervid summer,
And flies to the sounding shore
Where bleak Boar's Head looks seaward.
Set in the billows' roar,
And dreams of her sailors and fishers
Till cool days come once more.
Then how fair is the maiden.
Crowned with the scarlet leaves.
And wrapped in the tender, misty veil
Her Indian Summer weaves! —
While the aster blue, and the goldenrod.
And immortelles, clustering sweet,
From Canada down to the sea have spread
A carpet for her feet;
And the faint witch-hazel buds unfold.
Her latest smile to greet.
She loves the song of the reaper;
The ring of the woodman's steel;
(317 )
THE MOUNTAIN MAID
The whir of the glancing shuttle;
The rush of the tireless wheel.
But, if war befalls, her sons she calls
From mill and forge and lea.
And bids them uphold her banner
Till the land from strife is free;
And she hews her oaks into mighty ships
That sweep the foe from the sea.
O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire!
For beauty and wit and will
I'll pledge her, in draughts from her crystal
springs,
Rarest on plain or hill !
New York is a princess in purple
By the gems of her cities crowned;
Illinois with the garland of Ceres
Her tresses of gold has bound.
Queen of the limitless prairies
Whose great sheaves heap the ground;
And out by the vast Pacific,
Their gay young sisters say:
"Ours are the mines of the Indies,
And the treasures of far Cathay;".
( 318 )
MOUNT ADAMS
I'HOTO BY SHOREY STIDIO, OORHAM
We hare heard whispers from the mountains heart,
And life henceforth is nobler. — Lucy Larcoiu
THE MOUNTAIN MAID
And the dames of the South walk proudly
Where the fig and the orange fall
And, hid in the high magnolias.
The mocking thrushes call;
But the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire,
Is the rarest of them all!
Edna Dean Proctor.
THE UNCANOONUC MOUNTAINS
I HAVE passed the Uncanoonucs, and have trav-
elled far away-
Through the borderland of Mystery upon an
endless quest;
But other Uncanoonucs, glimmering in the twi-
light gray,
Still lift their hazy summits at the threshold
of the West.
One misty mountain overpassed upon the march
of time,
Another summit breaks in view, and onward
still I roam —
Another mountain in the mist which beckons me
to climb.
Like the Uncanoonuc Mountains which I used
to see from home.
Sam Walter Foss.
( 320 )
DEATH OF HAWTHORNE
He rose upon an early da^wii of May,
And looked upon the stream and meadow flowers,
Then on the face of his beloved, and went;
r
And, passing, gazed upon the wayside haunt.
The homely budding gardens by the road.
And harvest promise, — still he said, I go.
Once more he mingled in the midday crowd.
And smiled a gentle smile, a sweet farewell,
And moved toward the hills and laid him down.
Lying, he looked beyond the pathless heights.
Beyond the wooded steep and clouded peaks.
And, looking, questioned, then he loved and slept.
And while he slept his spirit walked abroad.
And wandered past the mountain, past the cloud.
Nor came again to rouse the form at peace.
Though like some bird we strive to follow him,
Fruitless we beat at the horizon's verge.
And fruitless seek the fathomless blue beyond.
(321 )
DEATH OF HAWTHORNE
We work and wait, and water with salt tears.
Learning to live that living we may sleep,
And sleeping cross the mountains to God's rest.
Annie Fields.
THE END
NOTES
NOTES
All quotations credited to Pickard, Lucy Larcom's diary, and Annie
Fields are, respectively, from the well-known Life and Letters of John
Creenleaf Whittier, Addison's Lucy Larcom: Life, Letters, and Diary, and
I Mrs. Fields's Whittier: Notes of His Life and Friendships. References
,to Starr King and Sweetser are to their famous volumes, The White
Hills: Their Poetry and Legends, and the guide to the White Mountains.
All references are to New Hampshire, unless otherwise stated.
Page 3.
Mountaineer's Prayer — written on the sum-
mit of Moosilauke, September 7, 1892, the day after
Whittier's death. October 16, Miss Larcom wrote in
her diary: "I seemed to see him pass on by me, up
the heights, and seemed to hear him say, as he passed,
*So easy a thing it is to die! Like the mountain
blending with the clouds, like the melting of earth
into sky, is the transition from life into loftier life. ' "
Page 5.
New Hampshire — inspired by the "Hale storm"
of 1845, which returned John P. Hale to Congress
the following year. Hale's letter to his constituents
on the proposed annexation of Texas was called by
Whittier "one of the boldest and noblest words ever
spoken for Liberty," and the poet also declared that
he " would rather be the author of that letter than the
President of the United States" (Pickard, p. 306).
See Pierpont's poem beginning, "Ho! children of the
granite hills"; also Whittier's Letter "supposed to be
(325 )
NOTES
written by the chairman of the *Central Clique' at
Concord, N. H., 1846.
The first two lines are the text of a strong patriotic
poem by Allen Eastman Cross, entitled The Ninth
Star, and read at the state celebration of the hun-
dredth anniversary of the Constitution.
Stark — the New Hampshire hero at Bennington,
1777.
Langdon — soldier and patriot, through whose in-
fluence New Hampshire signed the Constitution.
Page 6.
Easter in the White Hills.
Waumhek, or Waumhekket Methna — "mountain of
the snowy forehead." Schoolcraft says that the Al-
gonquins called the higher peaks Waumbik, meaning
"White Rocks." The first map to mention the White
Hills was Foster's map of New England, 1677.
Moosilauke — accented here on the second syllable,
as in the corrupted spelling "Moosehillock." The
usual accent is on the first.
Stone Face — the Old Man of the Mountain; see
Trowbridge's poem, p. 46.
'pass — Franconia Notch.
Monadnock — see note to p. 258.
Katahdin — see note to p. 53.
Page 9.
Enthralled — written at Jefferson; the marine
figure suggests the author's more characteristic work,
( 326 )
NOTES
when not "landlocked." Starr King says that the
Presidential Range as seen from Jefferson is "the
Ultima Thule of grandeur" in the White Hills. (See
The Birth of the White Mountains, Granite Monthly,
vol. 26, no. 4.)
Page 11.
Mount Washington — written on the piazza of
the Mount Pleasant House.
Page 12.
In the Crystal Hills — the opening passage of
The Bridal of Penacook. The name "Crystal Hills"
was first used in 1632 by Darby Field, who claimed
to have found gems on the Presidential Range. (See
Belknap's History of New Hampshire, vol. i, p. 23.)
Whittier also speaks of the Crystal Hills in The Bridal
of Penacook, iv, which also has a similar enumeration
of places.
Winnipiseogee — the old spelling is preserved for
the meter.
mountain wall — of Crawford Notch.
narrow rift — gate of Crawford Notch.
source — Saco Lake, in front of the present Craw-
ford House.
horn of Fahyan — a dinner horn seven feet long.
"We never heard mortal sounds," quotes Sweetser*
"to be named with the echoes of Fabyan's tin
( 327 )
NOTES
horn." An old Ballad of the Crawford Coachy to the tune
of Paddy Duffy's Cart, ran as follows: —
'T was up in Stove-Pipe City,
Forninst the mountains big.
There resoided Andy Murphy
And his purty shnow-white pig.
Now sure it was a purty pig.
The shwatest iver born.
And begorrah, how he 'd dance and shquale
To hear the Crawford horn!
(See The Old Dinner Horn, Granite Monthly, vol. 33,
no. 5.)
Agiochook — see note to p. 29.
Casco — Casco Bay, at Portland, Maine.
Moosehillock — see note to p. 6.
Kearsarge — near Conway. The effort to have the
mountain called by its Indian name Pequawket, to
distinguish it from the other Kearsarge (see note
to page 279), has apparently failed.
granite forehead — originally "Titan forehead";
the change was due to Starr King's criticism.
Umbagog — What a jump in geography!
Uncanoonuc's falls — Amoskeag falls at Man-
chester, six miles from the Uncanoonucs. Compare
the whole passage with Emerson's The Adirondacks.
Page 15.
Mount Webster — from The Hermit of the Saco,
cascades — Silver and Flume.
( 328 )
NOTES
Page 16.
Franconia Notch — the opening stanza of a long
poem; see biographical note, Hibbard.
Page 17.
Lake of the Clouds. The Lakes of the Clouds
are two tiny tarns in the depression between Mount
Washington and Mount Monroe, 5000 feet above the
sea. They are the source of the Ammonoosuc, but
were supposed by Gorges in 1642 to be the source of
the Connecticut. The larger lake — three quarters of
an acre of crystal water — was formerly called Wash-
ington's Punch-Bowl. It has inspired other poems, by
Daxid M. Smythe and Franklin Pierce Carrigain.
alpine plants — see Sweetser, p. 237.
Page 21.
Men of New Hampshire — the closing lines of
Men of Dartmouth.
Page 22.
\^K The Willey Slide — from a long poem, The
V^t Willey House, printed originally in Putnam's Maga-
H zine, 1855, and quoted in full by Starr King. The
IB Willey House, a public house in Crawford Notch,
Ih built perhaps as early as 1793, was occupied in 1825
IB by Samuel Willey and family. The landslide of Au-
IH gust 28, described in the poem, parted just above the
IB house, but the fleeing inhabitants — Willey and his
IH wife, five children, and two hired men — all perished
( 329 )
NOTES
in the vale below. (See Rev. B. G. Willey's History
of New Hampshire; Solitaire, a romance by George
Franklyn Willey, a native of Jackson; New Hampshire
Historical Collections, vol. 3; Hawthorne's The Am-
bitious Guest; Mrs. Sigourney's The White Mountains
after the Descent of the Avalanche; and Pierpont's poem
beginning "An everlasting hill was torn.") In the
same storm Ethan A. Crawford's house on Mount
Washington — the first house on the summit — was
swept away.
Page 25.
New Hampshire — the third, fourth, and fifth
stanzas of a long poem, New England.
Greylock — the highest summit in the Berkshires.
Katahdin — see note to p. 53.
Monadnock — see note to p. 258.
Page 28.
On the Mountain — written on Mount Wash-
ington.
Page 29.
Mount Agiochook — "the place of the Great
Spirit of the forest" — printed in the appendix of the
Cambridge Whittier. Agiochook (Mount Washington)
was a "haunted mount" to the Indians, whose
superstition peopled the higher peaks with superior
beings. A vague tradition relates how Passaconaway,
( 330 )
NOTES
the venerable bashaba of the New Hampshire Con-
federation, who was converted by the Apostle Eliot
in his HOth year, was borne by a wolf-drawn sleigh
to the summit of Agiochook, where he was received
into heaven. (See Sweetser, p. 29, for a poetical ren-
dition of this legend.)
Page 31.
Garfield's Burial Day — written while ascend-
ing Mount Washington, September 26, 1881. Mount
Garfield (formerly the Haystack) was so named by
the selectmen of Franconia, 1881.
Page 33.
MoosiLALTKE — "bald place" — see note to p. 6.
grand horizons. Sweetser calls the view from Moo-
silauke the best in New Hampshire; and Philip M.
Savage, in Solitude, says that "he who stands on
Moosilauke is master of the hills."
Whiteface — in the Adirondacks.
Killington — in the Green Mountains, near Rut-
land.
bright lake — Winnipesaukee.
rivers flow — The Connecticut Valley is a beauti-
ful feature of the view.
Page 34.
The Granite State.
Flora — the goddess of flowers and spring.
(331 )
NOTES
Page 35.
The White Hills — the opening stanza of a long
poem.
Page 36.
At the Flume House — from Summer Chemistry,
Page 37.
Looking Down — written on Mount Washington.
Page 38.
The Ascent of Mount Lafayette — dedicated
to the author's father, Rev. Moses T. Runnells.
one unrivalled — the Old Man of the Mountain.
Page 40.
Sunset on Mount Washington. Author's note:
"Much has been said and written of the beauties of
a sunrise from this lofty lookout, but these are more
than equalled by the splendors of a sunset, when
the wounded day lifts on high its tattered banners of
light and sends afar its bright javelins of fate."
Page 42.
The Profile — a stanza from a long poem; see
biographical note, Hibbard.
Great Spirit. The Pemigewassets worshiped the
Profile.
( 332 )
h
NOTES
Page 4S.
Mount Liberty — written at North Woodstock,
1911.
Page 45.
Nook near Lafayette.
Echo — a mountain nymph.
Page 46.
The Old Man of the Mountain — a well-
known poem by an author still better known for
his prose.
the lake — Profile Lake, directly under the Profile,
formerly called the Old Man's Wash-Bowl.
far up — 1200 feet above the lake.
eighty — somewhat overestimated. The profile is
formed by three disconnected rocks fifty feet high.
(See Hitchcock's Geology of New Hampshire.)
so quickly gone — the profile dissolves as one's
point of view is changed a few steps.
Read Hawthorne's exquisite story. The Great Stone
Face; and a later story, Christus Judex; a Legend of
the White Mountains, by Edward Roth.
Page 52.
Peabody Glen — written in Peabody Glen; later
expanded under the title of The Brook.
Page 53.
In a Cloud-Rift — written on Mount Washington.
( 333 )
NOTES
Monadnock — see note to p. 258.
Katahdin — the highest mountain in Maine, 165
miles distant. The heated discussion in the seventies
as to whether Katahdin can be seen from Mount
Washington, led to the present line, " Or is it some dim
mountain of our dreams? " The original line, as printed
in the 1878 edition of Miss Larcom's poems, was "Un-
certain as a mountain seen in dreams." Sweetser says
(p. 244) that Katahdin "is surely invisible from
Washington."
See Mount Washington, written on the summit by
Rev. Dr. Charles Burroughs, a native of Portsmouth,
in Poets of Portsmouth.
Page 56.
The Old Man of the Mountain — published
originally in the author's Birch Bark Poems, at the
Profile House, in the summer of 1878. New Hamp-
shire Poets contains further poems on the Profile by
Governor Moody Currier and Mary Baker G. Eddy.
See also Nelson's Profile Poems, and poems by George
Bancroft Griflfith and Samuel Longfellow.
Page 57.
■ Keep the Forests. The recent passage of the
Crawford Notch Bill is one indication of the move-
ment to preserve the Wliite Mountain forests.
Waumhek Methna — see note to p. 6.
Agiochook — see note to p. 29.
Pequawket — see note to p. 12, Kearsarge,
( 334 )
NOTES
Page 61.
The Summit-Flower — written on Mount Wash-
ington, August, 1882. The flower described is the
Greenland, or alpine, sandwort (Sweetser, p. 230).
Miss Larcom has many poems on flowers. See White
Everlasting Flowers, written on the summit of Ossipee.
Page 63.
Sunset on Profile Lake — published originally
in the author's Birch Bark Poems, at the Profile House,
in the summer of 1878.
Face — see note to p. 46, eighty.
Page 65.
The Hills are Home — written by invitation
of Governor Frank W. Rollins, founder of Old Home
Week, and read at the first Concord festival in Au-
gust, 1899; pronounced by Stedman the best occa-
sional poem written by an American within a genera-
tion. Another strong poem by "New Hampshire's
informal poet laureate" is New Hampshire, read at the
bi-centennial of the settlement of New Hampshire,
in May, 1873.
Contoocook — Indian for "Singing Water"; Miss
Proctor's native river, rising near Monadnock (see
notes to pp. 244 and 258) .
Notch — Franconia Notch.
Stone Face — see note to p. 46, eighty.
lake — Echo Lake.
Kearsarge — in Merrimack County; see p. 279.
( 335 )
NOTES
Page 69.
Asleep on the Summit — written on Mount
Washington, August, 1877.
Page 73.
Among the Hills — written at the Bearcamp
River House, West Ossipee, 1868; printed the same
year, as The Wife: An Idyl of Bearcamp Water, and ex-
panded to the present text, with present title, 1869;
dedicated to Annie Fields, whom the poet often called
Anna Meadows.
The Bearcamp River House, where the stage from
Center Harbor to Conway pulled up and changed
horses, was frequented by Whittier and Lucy Larcom,
as its predecessor, Banks's Hotel, and the original
Ames's Tavern had been by Starr King and Innes.
(See Annie Fields's Whittier, p. 77). Near the house
was a "Whittier maple," and not far away the poet's
favorite view of Chocorua. At the hotel in 1876
Whittier and Miss Larcom worked on Songs of Three
Centuries. Read Miss Larcom's poem J. G. W.
(1877), containing the lines: —
Among the mountains rose his voice.
When Peace made beautiful the air:
^ Our souls rose with him to rejoice;
Our lives looked larger, worthier, there.
See also Whittier's Letter to Lucy Larcom and To
Lv^y Larcom, Cambridge Whittier, appendix.
The Bearcamp River House was burned in 1880;
but Whittier Peak (named by Sweetser) towers near
( 338 )
NOTES
by, the West Ossipee railroad station is now Mount
Whittier, and the hamlet Whittier is not far away;
Mount Larcom is farther west.
Aiming to immortalize scenery, Among the Hills is
based on a slender incident — a pilgrimage of the poet
and some friends to a farmhouse on the Tamworth
road to buy butter. The lady is purely imaginary.
Incas — the ancient Peruvian kings, who had
gardens with "forms of vegetable life skillfully imi-
tated in gold and silver" (Preseott, History of Peru,
I, 130).
patriarch — Abraham; see Gen. xii, 7.
strain of years — the Civil War; with the tnumph
of freedom, Whittier returned to his favorite theme,
nature.
picture has another side. Compare this passage with
omitted passages of Emerson's Monadnock and the
following from Emerson's ode to W. H. Channing: —
Or who, with accent bolder.
Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?
I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!
And in thy valleys, Agiochook!
The jackals of the negro-holder.
The God who made New Hampshire
Taunted the lofty land
With little men.
Sermon on the Mount. See Matt, v-vii.
Canning — author of a humorous anti-democratic
poem called The Needy Knife-Grinder, written in
( 337 )
NOTES
burlesque of a . poem by Southey and published in the
Anti- Jacobin in 1798. Implored to tell his story of
injustice, the knife-grinder replies, as in Whittier:
"Story, God bless you, I have none to tell."
Hebrew pastoral — see Ruth.
Happy Isles — the isles of the West, whither the
favorites of the gods were borne.
Ophir — the region from which the ships of Hiram
and Solomon brought gold; mentioned frequently in
the Old Testament.
eternal beauty — compare Emerson's The Rhodora.
Chocorua's horn — the distinctive spire of Cho-
corua. To J. Warren Tyng, the artist, Whittier
wrote: "I sympathize with thee in thy love of the
New Hampshire hills, and Chocorua is the most beau-
tiful and striking of all." Whittier also called the view
from the Weirs, which he saw only on canvas, the best
view of Lake Winnipesaukee because of the impres-
siveness of Chocorua.
great peaks — of the Sandwich range.
Juno — wife of Jupiter and queen of heaven.
Bearcamp Water — Bearcamp River. See Frank
Bolles's poetic prose, To the North of the Bearcamp
Water.
flowing curves of beauty — applicable to the river
itself.
huskers — see allusion to husking, note to p. 100.
Mountain Sermon. See Matt, v-vii.
General Court — state legislature.
( 338 )
NOTES
Page 98.
Whiteface — see note to p. 107.
Page 99.
CiiocoRUA. Seenote top. 115. Mrr. Whiton-Stone
also has a pleasing sonnet on Chocorua on a July
Night.
Page 100.
The Voyage of the Jettie — a real incident,
written at Whittier's "Wayside," the Bearcamp
River House (see note to p. 73). Whittier's note:
**[To the former guests of this hotel] these somewhat
careless rhymes may be a not unwelcome reminder of
pleasant summers and autumns on the banks of the
Bearcamp and Chocorua. To the author himself
they have a special interest from the fact that they
were written, or improvised, under the eye and for
the amusement of a beloved invalid friend [Jettie
Morrill], whose last earthly sunsets faded from the
mountain ranges of Ossipee and Sandwich."
How they climbed Chocorua, which shows still
more of Whittier's humor, commemorated the Whit-
tier party's adventures on the mountain in 1876
(Whittier himself never climbed the mountain),
when the young ladies heard the bears growl among
the traps. The poet persuaded Lucy Larcom to read
the poem at a husking soon afterward. The poem, as
well as Miss Larcom's reply, is printed in Pickard's
Whittier Land, pp. 114-117.
( 339 )
NOTES
still lake — Bearcamp Pond.
Passaconaway — named for the great Indian chief
(see note to p. 29).
Paugus — named by Lucy Larcom in honor of the
Sokokis chief; see Whittier's Funeral Tree of the So-
kokis, p. 178.
Georges — the fishing banks off Cape Cod.
Grand Menan — in the Bay of Fundy.
siren-haunted — an allusion to the sea nymphs who
lured mariners by their sweet singing.
Page 107.
Clouds on Whiteface — written at North Sand-
wich. In 1822 a landslide stripped the mountain;
hence the name.
Page 110.
The Seeking of the Waterfall — written in
Ossipee Park, 1878. A second visit to "Whittier
Falls" is commemorated by a simple sign, "Whit-
tier, Aug. 10, 1884," when the poet wrote: "The place
is very fine in many respects, but I prefer Asquam"
(Pickard). See The Hill-Top, p. 157, and Storm on
Lake Asquam, p. 164.
Undine — a female water spirit.
great mountains — of the Sandwich Range.
Page 115.
Death of Chocorua — written in 1837. The
( 340 )
NOTES
many forms of the Chocorua >" ^nd seem to agree
that Chocorua, refusing to retrear'to Canada with the
Pequawkets after Lovewell's battle (see note to p.
220), remained peaceably with the whites until the
latter, suspecting the Indian of slaughtering a wliite
family in seeking vengeance, hunted him like a beast
on the mountain that now bears his name. "A curse
upon ye white men," screamed the Indian; "Choco-
rua goes to the Great Spirit, his curse stays with the
white man" — and he cast himself from the precipice.
The frequent death of live stock in Albany, the town-
ship where the mountain stands, has been found to be
due to the presence of lime in the water.
The Bride of Burton (1872), by Robert B. Caverley,
and also a long poem by David H. Hill, deals with the
Chocorua legend; while Jeckoyva, one of Longfellow's
early poems (see appendix of the Cambridge Long-
fellow) ^ has Chocorua for a hero.
Page 117.
Friend Brook — written at Ossipee Park, in the
early autumn of 1885. On October 7, Miss Larcom
wrote from Center Harbor: "I spent last week at
Ossipee Park, the loveliest spot in New England."
Rock and Rill was also written at Ossipee Park.
Page 119.
The Spirit of Wordsworth — written near White
Ledge, Sandwich. Wynander, Rydal, Rotha, Gras-
(341 )
NOTES
mere, Helvellyifea?irkstone, Fairfield, Scawfell, Blen-
cathre, Glaram':tra, and Dunmail Raise were all
names dear to Wordsworth in the Lake Country of
Northern England; Joanna was a sister of Words-
worth's wife. Read Ethel Arms's delightful little
book. Midsummer in Whittiers Country.
Page 121.
Chocorua Lake.
Lydian stone — basanite, used as a touchstone.
I
Page 122.
A Mountain Resurrection — written at North
Sandwich, 1863.
He stood there — Whiteface.
trusted spirits. Miss Larcom's sister had died a few
weeks before. In September, 1863, Miss Larcom re-
ceived a letter of condolence from Whittier, in which
the poet regretted his inability to accept her invita-
tion to visit her in the Pemigewasset Valley, and
added: "Glorious October will make amends. How
the maple splendor will climb the hills of Campton!
What hues will be mirrored in the Pemigewasset!
In what a radiant transfiguration will Winnipesau-
kee indulge! I don't suppose I shall see them, but it
is some satisfaction to know just how they will look."
Page 124.
The Log-Cock — from Chocorua' s Tenants.
( 342 )
NOTES
I
Page 126.
Sunset on the Bearcamp — written at the Bear-
camp River House (see note to p. 73) in 1876, and
printed in The Vision of Echardy and Other Poems,
1878.
Yarrow — a small stream in southern Scotland cele-
brated by Wordsworth and Scott.
MuUa — Spenser's home in Ireland.
mountain cradle — Sandwich Notch.
The gold, etc. — The delicate use of color here sug-
gests that Whittier was not, after all, color blind.
Hellas — Greece.
Ida — a mountain in Crete, in a cave of which Zeus
was nurtured.
A lover's claim. Compare Lucy Larcom's little
poem Shared, and her longer and perhaps finest poem,
A Strip of Blue, beginning: —
I do not own an inch of land.
But all I see is mine.
Sunset on the Bearcamp is perhaps the most popu-
lar of Whittier's nature poems, especially with young
students.
Page 130.
Chocorua — one of the most accurate of Miss
Larcom^s descriptions.
Page 133.
The Lakeside — written at Center Harbor in
( 343 )
NOTES
1849, and published in Songs of Labor, by Ticknor
& Fields in 1850.
Slow up the slope of Ossipee — title of a poem in
Julia N. Stickney's Poems on Lake Winnipesaukee.
yon hill — Chocorua, the granite of which is tinged
with red.
Smile of God. The popular interpretation of "Win-
nipesaukee" as the "smile of the Great Spirit" has
no relation to its etymology. The word means " beauti-
ful water of the high place," which may be literally
translated "beautiful lake of the highlands." (Sweet-
ser.)
Page 135.
At Alton Bay — a beautiful poem by an author
better known for his prose. The camp-meeting lights
have burned for many summers at Alton Bay.
Page 138.
A Summer Pilgrimage — written in 1882. Whit-
tier made many pilgrimages to the Bearcamp, Asquam
Lake, Center Harbor, Campton, and Intervale.
mountain wall — Ossipee Range.
one lake — Winnipesaukee.
and one — Asquam.
Pan — the Greek god of woods and fields, flocks
and shepherds.
satyrs — wood deities.
Mounts Delectable — the mountains from the sum-
( 344 )
NOTES
mits of which the Celestial City could be seen; see
Bunyan's Pilgrim's ProgrenSy part i.
priestess — the priestess of Apollo, who delivered
oracles at Delphi.
Israels Ark — the ark of the covenant, the "pat-
tern" for which was made known on Mount Sinai.
Matterham — a famous summit in Switzerland.
Page 143.
IPasquaney — written at Pasquaney Lake, 1893.
Loch Katrine, the Trossachs, and Ellen's Isle are
all immortalized in The Lady of the Lake.
Ben-Ledi — here Cardigan.
Wizard of the North — Scott.
Lemain — Lake Geneva, which Byron treats in
The Prisoner of Chilian — a castle at the eastern end
of the lake.
1^ name uncouth — Newfound Lake.
^B restore the name — Pasquaney, Indian for "birch-
^B bark place."
Page 145.
The Grave by the Lake — a typical subject for
Whittier, to whom the Chocorua legend (p. 115) did
not appeal. "In 1808, on the shore of the lake, north
of the mouth of Melvin River, a gigantic human
skeleton was found, buried in a high tumulus. About
this was a circle of stones of different character from
any found in this region." (Sweetser, p. 388.) Whit-
( 345 )
NOTES
tier wrote the poem before visiting the spot: it first
appeared in The Tent on the Beach, 1867.
hundred isles — 274, to be exact.
carved his savage heraldry. The hieroglyphic histo-
ries of the Ossipees were found carved on the trees
when the whites came.
Page 153.
At Winnipesaukee — written at Center Harbor.
plunged knee-deep. "The mountains do not know
their own beauty anywhere but by a lake-side." —
Miss Larcom's diary, August 20, 1861.
Pentecost — the Jewish festival when the holy
spirit descended on the apostles.
Page 157.
The Hill-Top — written on Shepard Hill, south
of Lake Asquam, and published in Songs of Labor,
1850.
burly driver. The College Road, laid out in 1769 by
Governor John Wentworth, passed over Shepard Hill
on its way from Hanover to Wolfeboro.
Gizeh — the seat of three Egyptian pyramids, in-
cluding Cheops.
mountain-girdled Squam. Both Sweetser and Starr
King consider Asquam the most beautiful lake in
New England. "Asquam" ("Squam") means
"water."
Moosehillock . . . Notch Mountains — probably an
( 346 )
NOTES
idealized description, as neither can fce seen from
Shepard Hill. The poet may have mistaken Stinson
Mountain for Moosilauke, but that would explain
only half the matter. See note to p. 6, Moosilauke.
the Lake — Winnipesaukee. The College Road
passed through Center Harbor, Moultonboro, and
Tuftonboro.
J
I
Page 161.
To Lake Sunapee.
Soo-nipi — "wild goose water.'* Lake Sunapee was
a hunting-ground when wild fowl were migrating
southward; but after the French and Indian wars,
the Penacooks left the region without a history. See
Martha H. Abbott's The Penacook's Farewell to Lake
Sunapee^ Granite State Magazine, vol. 3, no. 2. Dr.
Quackenbos's hotel at Lake Sunapee is named Soonipi
^Pa^k Ix)dge.
Aurora — goddess of the morning.
AGE 164.
Storm on Lake Asquam — written in 1882 on
Shepard Hill, which had been visited many years
before by Whittier and his sister while passing from
Plymouth to Center Harbor by coach (see note to
p. 157, burly driver). The Asquam House had just been
built. Whittier visited Shepard Hill every summer
from 1882 to 1887. "He grew to love Asquam, with
its hills and lakes, almost better than any other place*
(347)
NOTES
It was there he loved to beckon his friends to join
him. *Do come, if possible,' he would write. 'The years
speed on; it will soon be too late. I long to look on
your dear faces once more.'" (Annie Fields, p. 89.)
Hebrew — Elijah; see 1 Kings xviii, 44.
peak to 'peak — a picture striking in its accuracy.
Chocorua is the pole star of Asquam mariners. Sum-
mer Storm at Sunapee, by George Bancroft Griffith,
and A New Hampshire Snow-Storm (on Winnipesau-
kee), by Isabella Gilman, owe much to this picture of
Asquam.
Page 166.
A Legend of the Lake — originally published
in the Atlantic Monthly, in 1861, but kept from Whit-
tier's works until the death of the hero's relatives
removed the restriction; published now in the appen-
dix of the Cambridge Whittier.
Circe — a sorceress who by means of an enchanted
cup turned men into animals.
Page 172.
Lake Winnipesaukee.
Belknap's double dome — Gunstock and Belknap.
Page 173.
To Lake Asquam — written on Shepard Hill (see
note to p. 157).
Como — in northern Italy.
( 348 )
NOTES
Page 174.
The Wood Giant — written at the Whit tier Pine,
Sunset Hill, Center Harbor, in 1885 — the latest
Whittier poem in this collection; first published in St.
Gregory's Guest and Other Poems, 1886. Whittier spent
seven summers at Henry Sturtevant's Sunset Hill
Farm and in the village, and in 1885 and 1886 Lucy
Larcom was also there. "You can see the tree above
others, ten miles across the lake, at Ossipee Park — it
is down in the pasture, a little way from the house,
looking towards sunset over the lake." (Lucy Larcom.
writing from Center Harbor, October 7, 1885.) The
pasture, beautifully wooded, is now occupied by a
summer school for girls; and the marker on the tree is
simply a warning to souvenir-seekers.
In the summer of 1886 Miss Larcom wrote from
*'Wood Giant's Hill": "I saw the sun drop last even-
ing — its magnified reflection, rather — into the
larger Lake Asquam, like a ball of crimson flame. The
sun itself went down, hot and red, into a band of warm
mist that hung over the hills. The *Wood Giant*
stood above me audibly musing. His twilight thoughts
were untranslatable, but perhaps the wood-thrushes
understood, for they sent up their mystical chant
from the thickets below, in deep harmony with the
music of his boughs." (Addison, p. 229.)
Whittier's last visit to Sunset Hill was in 1888. He
was in Conway the next year, in Wakefield in 1891,
and at Hampton Falls, where he died, in 1892. Until
(349)
NOTES
within four weeks of his death, he was hoping to make
an autumn pilgrimage to Sunset Hill.
Anakim — a race of giants mentioned in Num.
XIII, 33, and ii, 10.
Below, the lake — Asquam.
Tyrian — pertaining to Tyre, in ancient Phoenicia.
Druids — see note to p. 22.
Dodonas priestess — an allusion to the oldest
oracular shrine in Greece — in Epirus — founded
by a black dove prophesying in a grove of oaks
that an oracle of Jupiter should be established.
apart and mateless — autobiographical?
Page 177.
Lake Sunapee — the last of three stanzas entitled
Noon by Lake Sunapee, in Songs from, the Granite Hills.
Lake Leman — see note to p. 143, Lemain.
Araby — Arabia.
Kearsarge — see note to p. 279.
Other poems on Lake Sunapee have been written
by George Bancroft GriflSth, William C. Sturoc, and
Mary L. D. Ferris.
Page 178.
Funeral Tree of the Sokokis — first published
in The Knickerbocker, 1841; republished in Lays of
My Home, and Other Poems, 1843. When the English
began to occupy the lower Maine coast, the Sokokis
tribe retired from the mouth of the Saco and joined
the Pequawkets and Ossipees, and finally removed
( 350 )
NOTES
I
to St. Francis in 1756. The Sokokis were early con-
verts to the Catholic faith.
Sebago — "pond place."
mountain-tops — of the Presidential Range.
slaughtered chief. The description of the funeral
tree is true.
Page 181.
The Voice on the Mountain.
mountain ragged — Sugar Loaf.
Page 184.
Winnipesaukee — written at Meredith. Other
pleasing poems on Winnipesaukee have been written
by Mary H. Wheeler, Everett Smyth, and Thaddeus
P. Cressey.
Page 185.
Summer by the Lakeside — written at Center
Harbor, 1853; published 1856.
Transfused ... — compare the philosophy of this
stanza and of stanzas 14-16 with Emerson's Wood-
notes; read also Whittier's Worship of Nature.
ZXAea/i — obliterating; a draught from the river
Lethe in Hades caused oblivion of former lives.
lotus — a flower whose fruit made strangers forget
their native land.
Page 195.
The Merbimack
— written in 1841, the opening
(351 )
NOTES
passage of The Bridal of Penacook, I, and republished
in Lays of My Home and Other Poems, 1843; the
earliest of Whittier's maturer poems of the Merri-
mack ("strong and swift gliding current"), although
The Vale of the Merrimack, which appears in the ap-
pendix of the Cambridge Whittier, was written at the
age of 17. The three opening stanzas of The Merri-
mack deal with the upper river, the Pemigewasset —
"place of crooked pines." "Merrimack" is the cus-
tomary spelling in New Hampshire.
white-crested mountain — Eagle Cliff. As the Cliff
was not named till 1860, the two opening lines appear
a poetic anticipation. Sweetser quotes the first two
stanzas, saying that Ethan's Pond, on the shoulder
of Mount Willey, is the real fountain head of the
Merrimack — which is geographically true.
Uncanoonucs — twin summits (see p. 320) six miles
west of Amoskeag Falls, where the "gliding of
shuttles" has made Manchester.
Pentucket — Lowell ; see Whittier's poem of that
title.
Penacook — "crooked place." The present village
is six miles north of Concord.
Page 198.
The Pemigewasset — from A Week on the Con-
cord and Merrimack Tiivers.
Helicon — the home of the Muses.
( 352 )
NOTES
Page 199.
Saco Fali^. Fields s Ballad of the Tempest &nd The
Owl Critic are better known than his White Mountain
> poetry.
AGE 201.
Mad River — one of Longfellow's last poems.
Longfellow visited Mad River in 1880, while a guest
at "Stag and Hounds," West Campton. The poem
was written early in 1882; The Bells of San Bias, his
last poem, March 12, 1882, twelve days before his
death.
Page 205.
Sugar River.
Smooth as Pope or Thomson — an allusion to the
polished pentameter couplet of 1725, circa.
Tiber — the river of Rome.
Hellespont — the Dardanelles, uniting the -^gean
Sea with the Sea of Marmora.
Mars — god of war.
Venus — goddess of love and beauty.
Croesus — a king of Lydia, famous for his riches.
Anakim — see note to p. 174.
Mrs. Hale was the leader of the Newport literary
colony, which included her son, Horatio Hale, the
ethnologist; Rev. Carlos Wilcox, who read a Phi
Beta Kappa poem at Yale, and who in 1820 was
ranked high among American poets; George Bancroft
( 853 )
I
NOTES
Griffith, and Edward A. Jenks. The last two are re-
presented in this collection; and Mr. Jenks has written
a pleasing poem on Sugar Kiver, entitled To a Favor-
ite Stream.
Page 209.
Hills in Mist — written in Campton. In De-
cember, 1867, Miss Larcom wrote to Jean Ingelow:
"I usually stop at a village on the banks of the Pemi-
gewasset, a small silvery river that flows from the
Notch Mountains, — a noble pile, that hangs like a
dream, and flits like one too, in the cloudy air." (Ad-
dison, p. 168.) Miss Larcom's other retreats were
Ossipee Park, West Ossipee, Berlin Falls, Bethlehem,
Moosilauke, Center Harbor, and Bethel, Maine. Com-
pare p. 107 and Valley and Peak, also written at
Campton; see also My Mountain, p. 215, and note,
p. 211, first quotation.
Page 210.
Saco's Cradle — Dismal Pool, below the gate of
Crawford Notch.
Page 211.
Franconia from the Pemigewasset. The first
stanza of this poem was written at Lovewell's Pond,
Fryeburg, Maine (see note to p. 220) ; modified and
expanded in Campton (see note to p. 233) and con-
tributed to the Atlantic Monthly, 1861. "I am glad
thee saw the Notch Mountains, and those grand blue
( 354 )
I
I
NOTES
hills up the river that I used to watch through all
their changes.*' — Lucy Larcom to Whittier, Septem-
ber 8, 1861. (See Hills in Mist, by Lucy Larcom,
p. 209.) "In the spring of I860 he [Whittier] came to
Campton, ... a delightful spot for those who love
green hills and the mystery of rivers." — Annie
Fields.
Lowland home — Amesbury, Massachusetts.
the battle storm — Civil War.
burned. The original lapped was criticized by Fields,
and Whittier admitted the "feline suggestiveness "
of his imagery. (Pickard, p. 443.)
Page 213.
I^V The Flume — a stanza from a long poem; see
"^ biographical sketch, Hibbard. The Flume caflon,
through which a brook flows, is seven hundred feet
long, fifteen feet wide, and sixty feet high. It is per-
^^^ haps the greatest wonder in the White Hills.
I^ft lojie abode — the original Flume House.
I
Page 214.
The Merrimack — part of a long poem, which,
like Mabel Martin^ deals mainly with the lower
river.
Agiochook — see note to p. 29. In 1868, Lowell
sent from London a sonnet to be read at the presen-
tation of a picture of Whittier to Friends' School,
Providence ; the poem beginning : —
• ( 355 )
NOTES
New England's poet, rich in love as years.
Her hills and valleys praise thee, her swift brooks
Dance in thy verse; to her grave sylvan nooks
Xhy steps allure us, which the wood-thrush hears
As maids their lovers', and no treason fears.
Through thee her Merrimacks and Agiochooks
And many a name uncouth win gracious looks.
Sweetly familiar to both Englands' ears.
(Pickard, p. 704.)
Smile of Heaven — see note to p. 133.
•
Page 215.
My Mountain — written on Avery Hill, near the
schoolhouse just south of West Campton, 1867, while
boarding at Selden C. Willey's in Campton (see note
to p. 271). "One of the stillest moonlight evenings,
— not a sound heard but the bleat of a lamb, and the
murmur of the river; all the rest a cool, broad, friendly
mountainous silence. Peace comes down with the soft
clouds and mists that veil the hills; the Pemigewasset
sings all night in the moonshine." — Miss Larcom's
Journal, August 20, 1861. (See note to p. 233.)
Profile Mountain — a spur of Cannon Mountain.
stony face — Old Man of the Mountain.
Haystacks — the popular name for the mountains
east of Franconia Notch.
Page 219.
March — from The Bridal of Penacook, vn.
( 356 ) ♦
F
NOTES
]
I
Page 220.
The River Saco. Saco means "burnt pine place."
Agiochook — see note to p. 29.
lucid rings. In Fryeburg, Maine, the Saco winds
thirty-six miles in an area six miles square. The region
was the scene of the Battle of Ix)veweirs Pond,
which prompted Longfellow's early poem of that
title, published in the Portland Gazette in 1820 (see
Samuel Longfellow's Life of the poet, p. 21). Frye-
burg has been praised in verse by Governor Enoch
Lincoln, of Maine, and the opening chapter of How-
ells's A Modern Instance is laid there.
Page 222.
Diana's Baths. .
Diana — goddess of the moon and of virginity.
Page 223.
Up the Androscoggin — written in September,
Ift 1878, at Berlin Falls, which Starr King called "the
^^ most remarkable passage of river passion in New
England " (p. 2C5). The active city of Berlin is a com-
paratively recent creation.
(Magalloway — a northern tributary of Umbagog
Lake.
Waumhek-Methna — see note to p. 6.
Page 227.
OuB River — written for and read at a summer
( 357 )
NOTES
festival at the Laurels, on the bank of the Merrimack,
in Newbury, Massachusetts, 1861.
Arno — the river of Florence, Italy.
Don and Ayr — streams in Scotland.
Undine — see note to p. 110.
Page 229.
Merrimack River at its Source.
island sea — Winnipesaukee.
Stone-Face — see The Old Man of the MountaiUy by
Trowbridge, p. 46.
hlend. The Pemigewasset and Winnipesaukee unite
to form the Merrimack at Franklin, due east from
Kearsarge.
Page 230.
To Connecticut River.
lone lake — Connecticut Lake.
"Siveet Auburn" — described in Goldsmith's De-
serted Village, to which Brainard's poem owes much.
Brainard also has a pleasing poem on iSalmon River.
Page 233.
The Old School-House — written in Campton,
The school-house still stands, about a mile south of
West Campton, but trees now conceal the mountain
view. This is the view praised by Starr King (p. 21)
and still known as the "Starr King View"; it is also
( 358 )
NOTES
the point of view in Whittier's Franconia from the
Pemigewasset, p. 211.
w^m Haystacks — see note to p. 215.
Page 235.
Pemigew ASSET Ci/)UD-PiCTURES — the tenth stan-
za of Broken Cadences, in Cadences of Nature.
1^^ Nebo's Prophet — Moses; see Deut. xxxiv.
^P Bethel way — Jacob's ladder; see Gen. xxviii, and
note to p. 272.
Page 237.
The Merrimack River — part of a long poem.
Robert B. Caverley wrote an epic on the Merrimack
in 1866.
** Out the throne'* . . . ** water of life'* — see Rev.
XXII, 1.
Manitou — the Great Spirit of the Indians.
Page 239.
The White-throated Sparrow — "on hearing
his song in the White Mountains."
Page 241.
Climbing to Rest — written in West Campton.
Page 242.
The Saco — the opening stanza of Mary Garvin
(1856), which is not vitally a story of the hills.
( 359 )
NOTES
Waumhek Methna — see note to p. 6.
lake — Saco Lake.
Darby Field — an Irishman living near the New
Hampshire coast, who with two Indians made the
first ascent of the higher range in June, 1632. See
note to p. 32.
vexed. The Saco reciprocates.
Jocelyn — the author of Voyages (1672), which
first uses the name White Mountains. See Belknap's
History of New Hampshirey vol. i, p. 23.
Vines — Richard Vines, a medical missionary who
did valiant work among the Indians of the lower
Maine coast during the pestilence of 1616-17, and
who was the first Englishman to visit Crawford Notch.
Champernoon — Francis Champernoon, a member
of the governor's council in 1683, who explored the
Saco Valley. See McClintock's History of New Hamp-
shire, p. 104.
Page 244.
CoNTOocooK River — "singing water" — the
largest tributary of the Merrimack.
Monadnock — see note to p. 258.
Hillsboro and Henniker — towns west of Concord.
pine-crowned hill — the hill in Henniker where Miss
Proctor was born.
Wye — a river in Wales and England immortalized
by Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey.
Tay — a stream in Scotland.
( 360 )
NOTES
gem of isles — Dustin Island, at the mouth of the
river; named after Hannah Dustin, of Haverhill,
Massachusetts, who, with two other captives in 1697,
first feigning sleep, dispatched ten Indians and es-
caped by canoe down the river. The Dustin monu-
ment can be seen from the train just north of the
Penacook station.
Page 248.
Falls of the Saco — the opening passage of
Mngg MegonCy the first poem in the early editions of
Whittier, now in the Appendix. The poem was first
printed in the New England Magazine in 1836. Mogg
Megone, or Hegone, was a Saco leader in the bloody
war of 1677.
Page 249.
The Merrimack Revisited — read at the Lau-
rels (see p. 227) in June, 1865. Read Literary Associa-
tions of the Merrimack River, by George Waldo Browne,
in the Granite State Magazine, vol. 4, nos. 2, 3, 4.
Page 251.
Connecticut River — "sentiments worthy of
Gray's Elegy . . . without anything like close imi-
tation " (Maria Edgeworth). Whittier commemorated
his friendship with Mrs. Sigourney in Hartford,
Connecticut, by writing the memorial inscription
near her pew in Christ Church in that city (see
Cambridge Whittier).
(361 )
NOTES
Page 252.
SoNGO River.
devious stream. A local wit declares that an eel
breaks his back trying to make the corners.
lake and lake — Sebago and Long.
Page 257.
Longing — a poem that gave promise of great ac-
complishment.
Page 258.
MoNADNOCK. This imposing mountain is in south-
western New Hampshire. "The genius of Mr. Em-
erson," says Starr King, " has made it the noblest
mountain in literature." See Emerson's Monadnock
from Afar, p. 311.
airy citadel. The summit of Monadnock resembles
a fortress.
stones — let not the stones be the only recipients
of the day's splendors.
sloth urbane — the indifference of city people toward
nature.
loving not a name — the longing for the heights of
God is a nameless longing.
cloud-rack — a light cirrus cloud ; see The Tempest,
IV, 1.
spirits pile. On the summit masses of clouds are
piled high.
stone-cleaving cold. Compare the omitted passages
with Among the Hills, 73.
( 362 )
NOTES
I
Meru — a fabulous mountain in the center of the
world — the Hindu Olympus. These lines resemble
Hegel's dictum, that one thought of man outweighs
all nature.
lightly bear — bold image of the lofty mind that
dwells among the higher thoughts and carries the
mountains in its hands as a very little thing.
Every mom, etc. Both Sweetser and Starr King
quote these lines in treating Mount Washington.
scarf — the vesture of the mountain, and the light
of the morning, revealing it, winds it about the moun-
tain; or, wreathing vapor.
show — I show the clerk with his bead eyes my gran-
ite chaos, and the quartz which is my midsummer
snow.
See there the grim, etc. A contrast between the blind
animal-man, overpowered by nature, and the god-
like soul-man, serenely ruling nature.
Page 265.
The Distant Range — written on Mount Blue,
August 22, 1860. See Addison, 73. The range de-
scribed is the Presidential Range.
Page 266.
The Call of the Country — the closing poem
in Love Triumphant (1904).
Back on my breast at last — the young author lies
buried at Tilton, where his venerable father. Dr. D.
C. Knowles, is still president of the seminary.
( 363 )
NOTES
Page 271.
An Invitation — written in Campton, 1855. James
T. Fields and Annie Fields boarded in the summer
at Selden C. Willey's from 1863 to 1868. June 19,
1864, Fields wrote to Longfellow: "Would that you
were here, to feel with us the wonderful beauty of the
hills! Do come, and go over the Willey acres, and
drive down into the comforting valleys by the lovely
river, and eat wild strawberries, and rattle over the
hills in our old wagon." See Fields's Spring among the
Hills, and Whittier's To James T. Fields.
Starr King quotes An Invitation in his description
of North Conway, and adds: "When the time comes
that this poetry by Fields shall be the type of the
cultivation of the village. North Conway will be lifted
out of the New Hampshire county in which it is
taxed, and be the adytum of a temple where God is
to be worshipped as the infinite Artist" (p. 157).
Page 272.
Mount Moriah from Bethel.
Jacobus Dream — see note to p. 235.
Page 275.
The Village Lights — written at Bethlehem.
sheltering mountain — Mount Agassiz (see p. 304).
Page 277.
Up to the Hills — written in Crawford Notch,
( 364 )
I
I
NOTES
1886, and printed, with other mountain poetry, in
Hymm and Verses, 1894.
Page 279.
Kearsarge — "high place" — in Merrimack
County.
Monadnock — see Emerson's Monadiiock, p. 258.
valor grand. The mountain gave the name to the
vessel that sank the Alabama off Cherbourg, June
19, 1864. The Winslow House, named after Admiral
Winslow, was built at the halfway point on the
mountain in 1865, was burned in 1867, was rebuilt,
and was burned again a few years ago.
Pelion — the Thessalian mountain which gave its
** goodliest trees" for the Argo, the ship that went in
search of the golden fleece.
Armada — Spanish Armada.
Argonauts — companions of Jason, who sailed in
the Argo (see Pelion, above).
Page 282.
Chow's Nest — written there, 1875.
Page 283.
On the Ledge — written in Bethel, Maine, in
**Miss Larcom's Retreat," — on the ledge back of
Russell's Riverside Cottage.
river — Androscoggin.
( 365 )
NOTES
Page 285.
MoNADNOCK FROM Wachusett — Written in 1862.
Page 286
The Farewell — written near the Blue Moun-
tains, Maine, August, 1860. See The Distant Ranges
p. 265.
Page 287.
Return to the Hills. Compare the second
stanza with Lucy Larcom's poem, beginning, —
I do not own an inch of land.
But all I see is mine.
Page 289.
Thompson's Grove — written in North Conway.
Lethean — see note to p. 185.
Page 290.
Days on Monadnock — from The Mountain, a
canto of The Wanderer, as revised after Channing
and F. B. Sanborn had slept (1869) in a hut previously
used by Channing and Thoreau.
hamlet — Jaffrey.
stream — Contoocook River.
Page 291.
The Bells of Bethlehem — written "on hear-
ing them in the hill country of New Hampshire,
September, 1880."
( 366 )
p
NOTES
I
Page 292.
MoNADNOCK — written at Chesterfield, 1879.
Page 293.
BuBNB Hill.
lake — Pasquaney.
mountain monarch — Cardigan.
Page 294.
monadnock in october.
Ashuelot — the Cheshire County tributary of the
Connecticut.
Read the closing stanza of The Bluebird, by Miss
Proctor; Sunset on Monadnock, by Charles N. Holmes;
and Indian Names , by Mrs. Sigourney.
Page 296.
From the Hills — written on Mount Moosi-
lauke, 1891.
I The hills are a religion — "Mountains . . . are in-
^m deed presences. [See p. 815.] There must be some-
thing like them in heaven. I go down to-morrow, to
hotel-life for a week or so, but the peace and strength
of the hills will remain in my heart." — Miss Larcom's
diary, written on Moosilauke, September 13, 1891.
(See note to p. 3, and A Thanksgiving.)
1^^ the sea — **I feel like telling the sea to be still." —
^F Miss Xircom's diary. *' There is rest in the sea, but
it never rests me like the strong silent hills; they
( 367 )
NOTES
bear me up on their summits into heaven's own
bkie eternity of peace." — Miss Larcom's diary,
September 5, 1861.
Page 297.
Mount Pleasant — near Fryeburg, Maine.
blue peaks — Chocorua, Moat, etc.
small lake — Pleasant Lake.
Page 300.
The Strength of the Hills — the words of
Psalm xciv, 5; from The Playmate Hours (1904).
Monadnock — see Emerson's Monadnock, p. 258.
Diana — goddess of the hunt, see also note to p. 222.
Page 301.
Monadnock — first published in The New Hamp-
shire Book (Nashua, 1842), and republished in Pea-
body's works, and in Bryant's, Stedman's, and other
anthologies.
Page 304.
Mount Agassiz.
well-loved name — that of Louis Agassiz (1807-
1873),, the great naturalist.
Penikese — an island in Buzzard's Bay, where
Agassiz conducted a Harvard Summer School.
Horeh — Mount Sinai, where God revealed himself
to Moses.
( 368 )
NOTES
Page 305.
Sunrise on the Hills — written on Mount Kear-
sarge, near Conway, in 1825, the year Longfellow
graduated from Bowdoin.
blue lake — Echo Lake.
milage — North Conway.
written at Concord, Mas-
Week on the Concord and
Page 307.
The Distant Hills -
sachusetts; printed in A
Merrimack Rivers.
Peterboro — east of Monad nock.
Firm argumenU etc. This couplet was omitted from
the version printed in A Walk to Wachusett.
While we enjoy, etc. The last six lines are quoted
by Starr King in his Franconia chapter.
Page 308.
The Hills op Dartmouth — from Comrades,
read at the sixtieth national convention of the Psi
Upsilon fraternity, at Dartmouth College, May 18,
1893. Compare the author's ode on Spring, — read
at a similar convention at the University of Michi-
gan in 1896, — beginning, after the style of Whit-
I said in my heart, " I am sick of four walls and a ceiling.
I have need of the sky.
I have business with the grass ..."
( 369 )
NOTES
Page 311.
MONADNOCK FROM AfAR.
Cheshire — county.
In The Sphinx Emerson says : —
Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She stood Monadnock's head.
and one of his Fragments on Nature is: —
A score of airy miles will smooth
Rough Monadnock to a gem.
See also The World Soul.
Page 312.
Bald-Cap Revisited — written in Shelburne, 1876.
Compare the author's Wakeful and Longfellow's My
Lost Youth.
Page 315.
The Presence — written near Mount Blue, in
Maine, 1891. See note to p. 296, first quotation.
Page 316.
The Mountain Maid — the opening poem in the
Old Home Week edition of Miss Proctor's poems. The
Mountain Maid, and Other Poems (1900).
Franconia's Lake — Echo Lake.
Stone-Face — see The Old Man oj the Mountain, by
Trowbridge, p. 46.
( 370 )
NOTES
Boars Head — at Hampton Beach.
migfUy ships — see note to p. 279.
Ceres — goddess of grain, fruits, and agriculture.
Cathay — the mediaeval term applied to China.
Page 320.
The Uncanoonuc Mountains — twin summits
six miles west of Manchester. Thoreau says that the
name means " two breasts."
Sam Walter Foss's boyhood home was in Candia.
Page 321.
Death of Hawthorne — written in Campton.
Hawthorne died in the Pemigewasset House, in Ply-
mouth, May 18, 1864, while moving "toward the
hills" with Franklin Pierce. Death came during the
night, and was so gentle that it left his "form at
peace." Read Longfellow's Hawthorne, May 23, 1864.
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX WITH
FIRST LINES
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX WITH
FIRST LINES
LLBEE. JOHN — bom. Bellingham, Massachusetts. 1883;
Worcester Academy, Phillips Andover. and Harvard; His-
tory of New Castle (New Hampshire). Prose Idyls, Remem-
brances of EmersoUt Chocorua Lake (verse). Confessions of
Boyhood; home, Pequawket, New Hampshire.
Small is my house, my acres small, 121.
ALGER, WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE — bom, Freetown.
Massachusetts, 1822; Harvard Divinity; pastorates, Rox-
bury, Boston, New York, Denver, Chicago, and Portland,
Maine; The Friendships of Women, Poetry of the Orient, The
Genius of Solitude, and four volumes on doctrinal subjects;
died, 1905.
My way in opeDiDg dawn I took. 52.
ALLEN, FREDERICK JAMES — bora. Limerick, Maine.
1864; Dartmouth; teacher. Bates College, Franklin, New
Hampshire,and Somerville, Massachusetts ; Poems, In Crys-
tal HUls.
The traflBc of the busy world goes by. 289.
Thy course is broken here, O Woodland Stream. 222.
BATES. CHARLOTTE FISKE (MME. ROGET) — bom.
New York, 1838; edited Cambridge Book of Poetry and Song
and a Longfellow Birthday Book, and assisted Longfellow in
compiling Poems of Places; author of Risk, and Other Poems;
home, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Before this mountain bore his well-Ioved name. 304.
BLAKE, MARY ELIZABETH — born, Ireland, 1845; vol-
ume of Mexican travels and two volumes of poetry, including
( 375 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
In the Harbor of Hope (posthumous); died, Quincy, Massa-
chusetts, 1907.
Not in the happy meadows, fair bedight, 28.
BOLLES, FRANK — born, Winchester, Massachusetts, 1856;
Harvard; on the Boston Advertiser; secretary to Harvard
University; The Land of the Lingering Snow, At the North
of Bearcamp Water, From Blomidon to Smoky, Chocoruas
Tenants (verse, 1895); died, 1894.
In the glens below Chocorua, 124.
BRAINARD, JAMES GARDINER CALKINS — bom.
New London, Connecticut, 1769; Yale; editor Hartford
Mirror; his poems, including Niagara Falls, were published
in 1825, and his Literary Remains were edited in 1832 by
Whittier, who succeeded him as editor of the Mirror; died,
1828.
From that lone lake, the sweetest of the chain, 230.
BROWNE, GEORGE WALDO — born, Deerfield, New
Hampshire, 1851; editor American Young Folks five years
and Manchester, New Hampshire, historical records in four
volumes; The Woodranger, The Hero of the Hills, With
Rogers'" Rangers, The St. Lawrence River, Two American Boys
in Hawaii, and a score of other books under his own name
and the pseudonym of Victor St. Clair; also Ruel Durkee,
a story of New Hampshire life; now editor Granite State
Magazine, Manchester.
The golden arrows cleave thy snowy crown, 40.
BUTTERWORTH, HEZEKIAH — born, Warren. Rhode
Island, 1839; editor Youth's Companion many years; Great
Composers, In the Boyhood of Lincoln, Songs of History,
The Knights of Liberty, Poems, and many volumes of Zig-
( 376 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Journeys, and other juvenile stories; died, Boston,
1905.
We saw \a the diatance the dusky lake fade, 135.
SS, JOSEPHINE AUGUSTA — born. Hill, New Hamp-
shire, 1855; Tilton Seminary and Wellesley: teacher at
Wellesley and University of Illinois; studied in England;
prolific contributor to magazines and newspapers; died,
Boston, 1889.
O, aet me free! the flower-starred meadows woo, 257.
CHADWICK, JOHN WHITE — born, Marblehead, Massa-
chusetts, 1840; Harvard Divinity; preached in Brooklyn,
New York, thirty years; t^o volumes of poems and eight
books on religious and anti-slavery topics; died, Brooklyn,
1904.
Building our beacon fire, we spread our feast. 282.
Eleven years, and two fair months beside, 312.
The merest bulge above the horizon's rim, 292.
CHANNING, WILLIAM ELLERY — born, Boston, 1818;
Boston Latin and Harvard; The Wanderer and other verse;
Thoreau, the Poet Naturalist and other prose; died Concord,
Massachusetts, 1901.
And great those days. 290-
HRANE, CLARK — bom. New Boston, 1843; Kimball
Union Academy and Albany University; MinorOt and Other
Poems; home, Antrim, New Hampshire.
Oh. how delightful is the mountain air, 177.
CROSBY, THOMAS RUSSELL — bom, Gilmanton, New
Hampshire, 1816; Gilmanton Academy and Dartmouth;
professor in Norwich University, Milwaukee Medical Col-
lege, and New Hampshire State College; died, Hanover, 1892.
^k The Indian loved thee as a gift divine, 237.
K ( 377 )
Thi
llboci
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO — born, Boston, 1803; class
poet, Harvard; pastor Second Church (Unitarian), Boston,
three years; formed lasting friendship with Carlyle in Eng-
land; moved to Concord, Massachusetts, 1835; lecturer
forty years, Salem, Massachusetts, Lyceum; Nature (1836),
Essays, two SQVxes, Poems, Representative Men (1850), English
Traits, Conduct of Life, May-Day and Other Poems, Society
and Solitude, Letters and Social Aims (1875), and Letters to
Thomas Carlyle, published after Emerson's death; died.
Concord, Massachusetts, 1882.
Dark flower of Cheshire garden, 311.
Thousand minstrels woke within me, 258.
FIELDS, ANNIE — wife of the late James T. Fields — born,
Boston, 1834; A Shelf of Old Books, Memoirs of James T.
Fields, Whittier: Notes of His Life and Friendships, Under
the Olive, The Singing Shepherd and Other Poems, Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Orpheus; home, Boston.
He rose upon an early dawn of May, 321.
FIELDS, JAMES THOMAS — born, Portsmouth, New
Hampshire, 1817; at age of eighteen delivered the anniver-
sary poem before Boston Mercantile Library Association;
publisher in Boston, 1844-1870; edited the works of De
Quincey in twenty volumes; lecturer; author of three volumes
of poems, also Yesterdays with Authors, Hawthorne, Old
Acquaintances, Underbrush; died, Boston, 1881.
Hark! 't is our Northern nightingale that sings, 239.
How sweet the chimes this Sunday morn, 291.
Rush on, bold stream! thou sendest up, 199.
The warm wide hills are muffled thick with green, 271.
(378 )
I
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
FLETCHER, JOSIAH MOODY — born, Halifax, Massa-
chusetts, 1828; Lowell High; compiled The Golden Gift,
which had an enormous sale; A Thousand Songs; bookseller
and publisher, Nashua, New Hampshire.
The rippling rills from Rumney hills, 269.
FOSS, SAM WALTER — born, Candia, New Hampshire,
1858; Tilton Seminary and Brown; editor Yankee Blade and
editorial writer Boston Globe; Back Country Poems, Whiff
from Wild Meadows, Songs of War and Peace, Dreams in
Homespun, Songs of the Average Man; librarian Somerville,
Massachusetts, public library; died, Somerville, 1910.
I have passed the Uncanoonucs, and have travelled far away, 320.
FOX, CHARLES JAMES — bom, Hancock, New Hamp-
shire, 1811; Dartmouth, and Yale Law; wrote History of
Old Dunstable, and with Rev. Samuel Osgood edited New
Hampshire Book of literature (1842); died, Nashua, 1846.
On the cliff's extremest brow, 115.
GANNETT, WILLIAM CHANNING — born, Boston,
1840; Harvard; Unitarian minister in Milwaukee, St. Paul,
and Rochester, New York; The Thought of God in Hymns
and Poems, A Year of Miracle, and other volumes; home,
Rochester, New York.
White clouds a-sail in the shining blue, 36.
ILDER, RICHARD WATSON — bom, Bordentown, New
Jersey, 1834; educated at his father's seminary in Flushing,
Long Island; assistant editor Scribneis Monthly; editor-in-
chief of the Century; active in educational and philanthropic
organizations in New York; The New Day, The Celestial
Passion, Five Books of Song, In Palestine and Other Poems,
( 379 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Poems and Inscriptions, In the Heights, and other volumes;
died. 1909.
Mountains in whose vast shadows live great names, 64.
GRIFFITH, GEORGE BANCROFT — born, Newport, New
Hampshire, 1841; compiled Poets of Maine; assistant editor
of Encyclopcedia of American Biography; Poems; home, New-
port, New Hampshire.
So clear, it seems but air just tinged with green, 45.
When Summer's royal robe of evergreen, 34.
GROVER. EDWIN OSGOOD — born, Mantorville, Min-
nesota, 1870; Dartmouth; literary editor in Minneapolis
and Chicago; president of the Prang Company, New York.
Through the wide hush of heaven's soft sunlit blue. 108.
HALE, SARAH JOSEPHA — born, Newport, New Hamp-
shire, 1790; editor Ladies' Magazine, and Godeys Lady's
Book, Philadelphia; author of "Mary had a little lamb,"
and of twenty-two volumes, including The Genius of Oblivion
and Other Poems, Osmond Grosvenor (tragedy), Northwood
(novel, reprinted in England), and Woman's Record {sketches
of distinguished women, several editions in America and
Europe); early advocate of higher education for women;
died, Philadelphia, 1879.
Let Avon roll with Shakespeare's deathless glory, 205.
HARRINGTON, KARL POMEROY — born, Somersworth.
New Hampshire, 1861; Wesleyan, University of Berlin, and
Y^ale; professor at University of North Carolina, University
of Maine, and Wesleyan; founder of Mendelssohn Club,
Bangor, Maine, and Twentieth Century Club, Middletown,
Connecticut; author of several Latin text-books, and editor
of Songs of All the Colleges, Wesleyan Song-Book, and Songs
( 380)
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity, and joint editor of the Method-
ist hymnal; home, Middletown, Connecticut.
O Liberty, that standest high. 43.
HENDERSON, HENRY CLAY — born, Williamstown,
West Virginia, 1845; Dartmouth; author of Lake of the Clouds
in Longfellow's Poems of Places, beginning: —
Queen of the clouds ! afar from crowds, 17.
HIBBARD, HARRY — bom. Concord, Vermont, 1816;
Dartmouth; Speaker ^of the New Hampshire House, Presi-
dent of the Senate, Member of Congress six years; Franconia
Mountain Notch, along poem in Democratic Review, 1839;
died, Somerville, Massachusetts, 1872.
And farther down, from Gamsey's lone abode, 213.
In thee the simple-minded Indian saw, 42.
The blackening hills close round; the beetling cliff, 16.
HIGGINSON, MARY THACHER — born, Machias, Maine,
1844; Such as They Are, The Cambridge Hours, In Playmate
Hours (all verse, the first with her husband, Thomas Went-
worth Higginson), Seashore and Prairie {sketches). Room for
One More (story); home, Cambridge.
A midnight hush pervades the air, 300.
HOVEY, RICHARD — bom. Normal, Illinois, 1864; Dart-
mouth; lecturer at Barnard College; translator of Maeter-
linck's plays; Launcelot and Guenetere (a series of dramas),
Taliesin (a masque), Seavmrd (an elegy on T. W. Parsons,
^.r.). Songs from Vagabondia (with Bliss Carman), Along
the Trail (poems); died, 1900.
Again among the hills! 308.
They have the still North in their souls, 21.
JACKSON. HELEN HUNT — bora, Amherst, Massachu-
(381 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
setts, 1831; several volumes of travel, Ramona (a romance
of Indian life), A Century of Dishonor (treatment of the
Indian), The Story of Boon (poem), several books for young
people. Glimpses of Three Coasts, Sonnets and Lyrics, Zeph
(novel); died, San Francisco, 1885.
Like a music of triumph and joy, 287.
Only a little village street, 275.
JENKS, EDWARD AUGUSTUS — born, Newport, New
Hampshire, 1830; Thetford Academy; journalist in New
York and Concord; New Hampshire State Printer three
years; Dartmouth (honorary); poems, in Bryant's Library
of Poetry and Song and other anthologies; home. Concord,
New Hampshire.
Across his breast the autumn sunbeams fall, 11.
KNOWLES, FREDERIC LAWRENCE — bom, Lawrence
Massachusetts, 1869 (see note to p. 266); Wesleyan and Har-
vard; edited Cap and Gown, Golden Treasury of American
Lyrics, Practical Hints for Young Writers, A Kipling Primer
(reprinted in London), and two books of verse. On Life's
Stairway and Love Triumphant; literary critic in publish-
ing houses; died, Boston, 1905.
O, you left her arms so early, lusting for the hurly-burly, 266.
Thou art the rough nurse of a hero-brood, 25.
LARCOM, LUCY — born, Beverly, Massachusetts, 1824;
edited a journal of the Lowell mill girls, since called The
Lowell Offering; edited Our Young Folks nine years;
teacher at Wheaton Seminary; Ships in the Mist and Other
Poems, An Idyl of Work, As It Is in Heaven, Wild Roses of
Cape Ann, Childhood Songs, Reckonings for Every Day, A
New England Girlhood, Poems; died, Boston, 1893.
( 382 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Dear World, on the peak we miaa something. — the sweet multi*
tudinous sound, 37.
Familiar is the scene, yet strange, 209.
Friend Brook. I hold thee dearest yet for what I do not know, 117.
From white brows flushed with heavenly morning-red, 296.
Gird me with the strength of thy steadfast hills, 3,
He stood there, a shape Titanic. 122.
I shut my eyes in the snow-fall, 215.
Now ends the hour's communion, near and high, 286.
O silent hills across the lake. 153.
Restored unto life by the sun and the breeze! 283.
Shining along its windings, 223.
So lovingly the clouds caress his head, 107.
Still must I climb, if I would rest, 241.
That morning on the mountain-top! 109.
The great New England mountains, the tallest of their clan, 3L
The mountain statelier lifts his blue-veiled head, 315.
The mountains, gased at from afar, 272.
The mountains through the window-pane, 233.
The pioneer of a great company, 130.
They beckon from their sunset domes afar, 265.
Though dew from the Franconia hills, 226.
Too close these giant hills their heads uprear, 61.
Upon our loftiest White Mountain peak, 53.
Upon the mountain's stormy breast, 69.
1L0NGFELI>0W, HENRY WADSWORTH — bom. Port-
land, Maine, 1807; Bowdoin; in Europe; professor at Bow-
doin 1829-1835, and at Harvard 1835-1854; Outre Mer,
Hyperion, Voices of the Night (1839), The Spanish Student,
Evangeline (1847), Hiawatha (1855), The Courtship of Miles
Standish, Tales of a Wayside Inn (1863), Hanging of the
Crane (1875), The Divine Tragedy, The Golden Legend, New
England Tragedies, Ultima Thule, In the Harbor (posthu-
mous); translated Dante and many Spanish, Italian, Ger-
^ ( 383 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
man, and Swedish works; compiled Poems of Places ; died.
Cambridge, 1882.
I stood upon the hills, when heaven's wide arch, 305.
Nowhere such a devious stream, 252.
Why dost thou wildly rush and roar, 201.
LONGFELLOW, SAMUEL— born Portland, Me., 1819;
Harvard; Unitarian clergyman in Fall River, Brooklyn,
and Germantown, Pennsylvania ; Life of his brother, H.
W. Longfellow ; Hymns and Verses, 1894 ; died Cambridge,
1892.
From tame and level lowlands, 277.
LUMMIS, CHARLES FLETCHER — born Lynn, Massa-
chusetts, 1859; Harvard; explored the continent from Can-
ada to Chile; editor Los Angeles Times ; founder of several
historical, sociological, and archaeological clubs; editor Out
West ; a score of volumes, including A Tramp across the
Continent, Some Strange Corners of Our Country, Pueblo In-
dian folk-stories. The Spanish Pioneers, The Awakening of a
Nation (Mexico), The King of the Broncos, and encyclopaedia
articles on Spanish America; librarian Los Angeles (Cali-
fornia) Library since 1905.
Son of the tempest and the earthquake's jars, 56.
The westward sun has left a wake of flame, 63.
LYONS, JAMES GILBORNE — born in England; minis-
ster in New Jersey and Pennsylvania after 1844; Christian
Songs, Sermons, and Poems ; died, 1868.
From Agiochook's granite steeps, 220.
ODELL, EVA BEEDE — born, Meredith, New Hampshire;
Tilton Seminary and Wellesley; preceptress in Methodist
Episcopal seminaries; Roxys Good Angel and other New Eng-
( 384 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Tand Tales (dialect stories of the Winnipesaukee region),
Winnipesaukee and Other Poems (1911); wife of Rev. Dr.
Willis P. Odell, Brookline, Massachusetts.
A world of beauty everywhere we go! 184.
PARSONS, THOMAS WILLIAM — born. Boston, 1819;
Harvard; translated Dante's Divine Comedy ; The Magnolia,
The Old House at Sudbury, The Shadow of the Obelisk; and
Poems, the last including On the Death of Daniel Webster, Hud-
son River,andOn a Bust of Dante ; died, Scituate, Mass., 1892.
Two summers now had seared the hills, 22.
PATTEE, FRED LEWIS — born, Bristol, New Hampshire,
1863; New Hampton Institution and Dartmouth; professor
of English Literature at Pennsylvania State College since
1894; The Wine of May, and Other Poems; Pasquaney, A
Study: reading courses in American Literature; The Foun-
dations of English Literature ; A History of American Litera-
ture ; novels, Mary Garvin, The House of the Black Ring, and
The Breaking-Point ; Elements of Religious Pedagogy ; edited
Freneau's poems in three volumes, and Macbeth.
Ah. Loch Katrine! 143.
Hast ever stood upon the wind-swept peak, 299.
O'er the waters of Pasquaney, 181.
The sun is low, and fair Pasquaney sleeps, 191.
The years have flown since then, 293.
PEABODY, WILLIAM BOURNE OLIVER — bom. Exe-
ter, New Hampshire, 1799; Harvard; Unitarian clergyman
in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he died, 1847. (His twin
brother, Oliver William Bourne, graduated from Harvard
with him, and became a Unitarian minister in Burlington,
t Vermont, where he died, 1848.)
Upon the far-off mountain's brow, 301.
(385 )
|i
I
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
PEASLEE, WALTER — born, Wilmot, New Hampshire,
1855; lawyer in Laconia, New Hampshire.
^gean seas are wondrous fair, 173.
PLUMER, WILLIAM — born, Epping, New Hampshire,
1789; Phillips Exeter and Harvard; Representative in Con-
gress, 1819-25; wrote a life of his father, who was Governor
of New Hampshire and United States Senator; two volumes
of sonnets, Youth and Manhood ; War Songs and Ballads of
the Old Testament ; Ruth, A Pastoral ; died, 1854.
Thy varied scenes blend grace, my native land, 35.
POOLE, FANNY RUNNELLS — born, Orford, New Hamp-
shire; daughter of Rev. Moses T. Runnells, who wrote His-
tory of Sanbornton ; Tilton Seminary and schools of music in
Boston and New York; two volumes of verse — A Bank of
Violets and Mugen — and one of music; home, Roxbury,
Massachusetts.
The mountains loose their locks from misty brows, 38.
We know not which is fairer, the repose, 172.
PROCTOR, EDNA DEAN — born, Henniker, New Hamp-
shire, 1838; educated in Concord; moved to Brooklyn; Life
Thoughts (from Beecher's sermons). Poems National and Mis-
cellaneous, Russian Journey, Genealogy of the Storrs Family,
The Song of the Ancient People (1892), The Mountain Maid
and Other Poems (1900); home. South Framingham, Massa-
chusetts.
Forget New Hampshire? By her cliffs, her meads, her brooks
afoam, 65.
Hark! where the cliffs are lost in clouds, 6.
Moosilauke! mountain sagamore! thy brow, 33.
Of all the streams that seek the sea, 244.
O Uft thy head, thou mountain lone, 279.
O lone Waumbek Methna! Who dares to profane, 57.
( 386 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
I
O Merrimack, strong Merrimack, 229.
O the Mountain Maid, New Hampshire! 316.
Uprose Monadnock in the northern blue. 294.
QUACKENBOS, JOHN DUNCAN — born. New York. 1848;
Columbia (M.D., 187l); teacher at Columbia and Barnard;
History of the World, History of Ancient Literature, History
of the English Language ; text-books in English, rhetoric,
physics, history, and geography, and various books and
pamphlets on mental and moral diseases — his specialty;
has a summer hotel at Lake Sunapee.
Lake of the wild fowl, Soo-nipi the Blest! 161.
RANKIN. JEREMIAH EAMES — bom, Thornton, New
Hampshire, 1828; Middlebury College; Congregational
minister in St. Albans, Vermont, Lowell, Boston, and Wash-
ington. D. C; president Howard University, 1889-1904;
Auld Scotch Mither and Other Poems, Broken Cadences,
several religious books, and many hymns, including God Be
With You; translated German-English lyrics; died, Washing-
ton, 1905.
Ye clouds that float in air, 235.
SANBORN, ROSE, pseud. (HANNAH E. MAXIM ALLEN)
— bom, Paris, Maine, 1831; home, Agnew, Nebraska.
'T was a glorious scene, — the mountain height, 297.
^SAVAGE, PHILIP HENRY — born, 1868, son of Rev. Minot
J. Savage; Harvard; instructor at Harvard and secretary
to Boston librarian; two books of verse; died Boston, 1899.
Spirit of Wordsworth, with me still, 119.
SIGOURNEY, LYDIA HUNTLEY — born, Norwich, Con-
necticut, 1791; fifty publications, including Traits of the
Aborigines (1822), Sketches of Connecticut, The Sea and the
( 387 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Sailor, The Man of Uz, Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands,
Letters of Life, and Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse; died,
Hartford, Connecticut, 1865.
Fair river! not unknown to classic song, 251.
SMYTH, DAVID McCONNELL — born, Ireland, 1833;
awarded gold medal of American Institute for invention of
machine for sewing books; member New Hampshire Legis-
lature, 1889; The Hermit of the Saco (1901), a long poem dedi-
cated to Hon. William E. Chandler; died, Hartford, Connec-
ticut, 1907.
A power unmoved, like him of iron will, 15.
The Dismal Pool, another deep recess, 210.
THAXTER, CELIA — born, Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
1835; daughter of a lighthouse-keeper on the Isles of Shoals;
early poems in two volumes. Driftwood, Poems for Children,
The Cruise of the Mystery and Other Poems, Idyls and Pas-
torals, amd Among the Isles of Shoals (prose sketches); died.
Isles of Shoals, 1894.
Like huge waves petrified against the sky, 9.
THAYER, STEPHEN HENRY - born. New Ipswich. New
Hampshire, 1839; banker in New York; financial editor Out-
look; Songs of Sleepy Hollow, Songs from Edgewood, Daugh-
ters of the Revolution (novel) ; home. New York.
Alpine in height, a towering form it lies, 98.
THOREAU, HENRY DAVID— born, Concord, Massa-
chusetts, 1817; Harvard; taught in Concord and Staten
Island, New York, and later earned his living by survey-
ing, making lead-pencils, and lecturing, though he made
literature his profession; lived in Concord; A Week on the
Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849), Walden, or Life in the
( 388 )
n
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
^oods (1854), Excursions (1863), The Maine Woods, Cape
Cod, Early Spring in Massachusetts, Summer, Winter, and
Autumn (1892); died. 1862.
Such water do the gods distill, 198.
With frontier strength ye stand your ground, 307.
TROWBRIDGE, JOHN TOWNSEND — born, Ogden,
New York, 1827; Dartmouth (honorary); located in Boston;
author of about fifty volumes, including Neighbor Jackwood,
The Three Scouts, Cud jo's Cave, The South and its Battle-
fields, The Drummer Boy, Jack Hazard and His Fortunes,
The Vagabonds and Other Poems, The Book of Gold and Other
Poems, A Home Idyl and Other Poems, My Own Story, and
Poetical Works; home, Arlington, Massachusetts.
All round the lake the wet woods shake, 46.
WESTON. EMMA GERTRUDE — born in Massachusetts;
contributes to Youth's Companion and other publications;
home. Laconia. New Hampshire.
A cloud of pearl and roae lies low in the burning west, 162.
WHITON-STONE. CAROLINE — born, Portsmouth. New
Hampshire; contributor to magazines; ode at the laying of
the comer-stone of the observatory at Amherst; home, South
Boston.
Again with August 6res thou bcckonest nie, 99.
WHITTIER. JOHN GREENLEAF — born. Haverhill,
Massachusetts, 1807; editor in Boston, Hartford, and Phila-
delphia; moved to .\mesbury. Massachusetts, 1840; Legetids
of New England (1831), Mogg Megone, Bridal of Pcnacook
(1837), In War-Time, Snow-Bound (1866). The Tent on the
Beach, Among the Hills (1868), The Vision of Echard and
Other Poems (1877), The King's Missive, Bay of Seven Islands,
( 889 )
BIOGRAPHICAL INDEX
Poems of Nature (1886), St. Gregory's Guest, At Sundown
(1892); died, Hampton Falls, New Hampshire, 1892.
A cloud, like that the old-time Hebrew saw, 164.
• A gold fringe on the purpling hem, 126.
Along the roadside, like the flowers of goid, 73.
Around Sebago's lonely lake, 178.
A shallow stream, from fountains, 100.
for weeks the clouds had raked the hills, 80.
From Alton Bay to Sandwich Dome, 174.
From the heart of Waumbek Methna, from the lake that never
fails, 242.
God bless New Hampshire! — from her granite peaks, 5.
Gray searcher of the upper air! 29.
I would I were a painter, for the sake. 285.
O child of that white-crested mountain whose springs, 193.
Once more, O Mountains of the North, unveil, 211.
Should you go to Center Harbor, 166.
Sing soft, sing low, our lowland river, 249.
Stream of my fathers! sweetly still, 214.
The burly driver at my side, 157.
The shadows round the inland sea, 133.
The wild March rains had fallen fast and long, 219.
They left their homes of summer ease, 110.
To kneel before some saintly shrine, 138.
We had been wandering for many days, 12.
We know the world is rich with streams, 227.
Where the Great Lake's sunny smiles, 145.
White clouds, whose shadows haunt the deep, 185.
Who stands on that cliff, like a figure of stone, 248.
390
n
r
INDEX OF TITLES
INDEX OF TITLES
Alton Bay, At, Buttenoorth 135
Among THE Hills, TTAi^^i^ . 73
LNDBOSCOGGiN, Up THE, Larcom 223
Ascent OP Mount L-\FAYETTE, The, Poo/« ... 38
Asleep on the Summit, Larcom 69
At Alton Bay, Butierworth 135
At the Flume House, Gannett 36
At Winnipesaukee, Larcom 153
Bald-Cap Revisited, Chadicick 312
Beabcamp, Sunset on the, Whittier 126
Bells of Bethlehem, The, J. T. Fields .... 291
BuBNS Hill, Pattee 293
Call of the Country, The, Knowles 266
Cabdigan, Pattee 299
Chocorua. Whiton-Stone 99
Chocobua, Larcom 130
Chocohua, Death of. Fox 115
Chocobua Lake, Albee 121
Climbing to Rest, Larcom 241
Clouds on Whiteface, Larcom 107
(Connecticut River, Sigoumey 251
Connecticut River, To, Brainard 230
iCoNToocooK River, Proctor 244
Crow's Nest, CAorfMncA: 282
Dabtmouth, The Hills of, Hovey 308
Days on Monadnock, Channing 290
Death of Chocobua, Fox 115
Death of Hawthobne, A. Fields 321
Diana's Baths, Allen 222
Distant Hills, The, Thoreau 307
Distant Range, The, Larcom 265
l^t Easter in THE White Hills, Proctor 6
^ ^■.Enthralled, Thaxter 9
IK ( 393 )
IBc<
11^
INDEX OF TITLES
Evening Song, Pattee . . .191
Falls of the Saco, Whitiier ....... 248
Farewell, The, Larcom „ . . 286
Flume, The, Hibbard 213
Flume House, At the, Gannett , 36
Fbanconia from the Pemigewasset, Whittier . . .211
Franconia Notch, Hibbard 16
Friend Brook, Larcom 117
From the Hills, Larcom 296
Funeral Tree of the Sokokis, Whittier .... 178
Garfield's Burial-Day, Larcom 31
Granite State, The, Griffith 34
Grave by the Lake, The, Whittier 145
Hills are Home, The, Proctor 65
Hills in Mist, Larcom 209
Hills of Dartmouth, The, Hovey ..... 308
Hill-Top, The, PF/ii«ter 157
In a Cloud-Rift, Larcom 53
In the Crystal Hills, Whittier 12
In the White Mountains, Gilder 64
Invitation, An, J. T. Fields 271
Kearsarge, Proctor 279
Keep the Forests, Proctor 57
Lafayette, Nook near, Griffith 45
Lake Asquam, Storm on, Whittier 164
Lake Asquam, To, Peaslee 173
Lake of the Clouds, Henderson 17
Lake Sunapee, Cochrane 177
Lake Sunapee, To, Quackenbos 161
Lake Winnipesaukee, Poole 17^
Lake Winnipesaukee, Sunset on, Weston . . 16'i
Lakeside, The, Whittier 133
Legend of the Lake, A, Whittier 166
Log-Cock, The, Bolles 124
Longing, Cass 257
Looking Down, Larcom 37
( 394 )
i
INDEX OF TITLES
Mad River, H. W. Longfellow 201
March. IVhiUier 219
Men of New Hampshire. Hovey 21
Merrimack, My, Larcom 226
Merrimack, The, "O child of that white-crested moun-
Uin," Whittier 195
Merrimack, The, "Stream of my fathers!" Whittier 214
Merrimack River, The, Crosby 237
Merrimack River at its Source, Proctor .... 229
MoNADNOCK, Chadunck 292
MoNADNOck, Emerson 258
MoN^ADNOCK, Peabody 301
MoNADNOCK, Days on, Channing 290
MoNADNocK from Afar, Emersou 311
Monadnock from Wachdsett, Whittier .... 285
MoNADNOCK IN OCTOBER, PrOCtOT 294
Moosilauke, Proctor 33
Mount Agassiz, Bates 304
Mount Agiochook, Whittier 29
Mount Chocorua, Grover 108
Mount Lafayette, The Ascent of, Poole .... 38
Mount Liberty, Harrington 43
Mount Moriah from Bethel, Larcom .... 272
Mount Pleasant, Sanborn 297
Mount Washington, Jenks 11
Mount Washington, Sunset on, Browne .... 40
Mount Webster, Smyth 15
Mountain Maid, The, Proctor 316
Mountain-Resurrection, A, Larcom 122
Mountaineer's Prayer, Larcom 3
My Merrimack, Larcom 226
My Mountain, Larcom 215
New Hampshire, Knowles 25
New Hampshire, Whittier 5
Nook near Lafayette, Griffith 45
Old Man of the Mountain, The, Lummis ... 56
( 395 )
INDEX OF TITLES
Old Man of the Mountain, The, Trowbridge ... 46
Old School-House, The, Larcom 233
On Ossipee, Larcom 109
On the Ledge, Larcom 283
On the Mountain, Blake 28
Ossipee, On, Larcom 109
Our River, Whittier 227
Pasquaney, Pattee 143
Peabody Glen, Alger 52
Pemigewasset, The, Thoreau 198
Pemigewasset Cloud-Pictures, Rankin . . . .235
Presence, The, Larcom 315
Profile, The, Hibbard 42
Profile Lake, Sunset on, Lummis 63
Return to the Hills, Jackson 287
Revisited, Whittier 249
River Saco, The, Lyons 220
RuMNEY Hills, Fletcher 269
Saco, Falls of the, Whittier 248
Saco, The, Whittier 242
Saco, The River, Lyons 220
Saco Falls, J. T. Fields 199
Saco's Cradle, Smyth 210
Seeking of the Waterfall, The, Whittier . . .110
SoNGo River, H. W. Longfellow 252
Spirit of Wordsworth, The, Savage 119
Storm on Lake Asquam, Whittier 164
Strength of the Hills, The, Higginson .... 300
Sugar River, Hale 205
Summer by the Lakeside, Whittier 185
Summer Pilgrimage, A, Whittier 138
Summit Flower, The, Larcom 61
Sunrise on the Hills, //. W. Longfellow . . . .305
Sunset on Lake Winnipesaukee, Weston . . . ,162
Sunset on Mount Washington, Browne .... 40
Sunset on Profile Lake, Lummis 63
( 396 )
INDEX OF TITLES
Sunset on the Bearcamp, Whittier 126
Thompson's Grove, Allen 289
To Connecticut River, Brainard 230
To Lake Asqcam, Peaslee 173
To Lake Scnapee, Quackenbos 161
Uncanooncc Mountains, The, Foss 320
Up the Androscoggin, Larcom 223
Up to the Hilus, S. Longfellow 277
Village Lights, The, Jackson 275
Voice on the Mountain, The, Pattee 181
Voyage of the Jettie, The, Whittier 100
Whiteface, Thayer 98
Whiteface, Clouds on, Larcom 107
White Hills, The, Plumer 35
White-Throated Sparrow, The, J. T. Fields . . . 239
WiLLET Slide, The, Parsons 22
WiNNlPESAUKEE, Odell 184
WiNNiPESAUKEE, At, Larcom 69
Wood Giant, The, Whittier 174
Wordsworth, The Spirit of, Savage 119
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
3\96 32
a!
1^
Famous American '
Poet Pens Touching
Lines to Burroughs I
(Copyright, 1921, by International
News Service)
New York. — Edwin Markham, fa-
mous American poet, author of "ihe
man with the hoe," at the request of
the Inlernational News Service today,
peoiied th£.iollowihg line in honor of
John Burroughs, widely known .aatur-
■ilist, >trh<)fe€ dfeath occairred y*»iterdfiy
The poem reads: .*
JOHN' BURRC3tfGHS IcALLEJtilBAnK.
M glorious, iKqvr. pie (|rf<^t ^qvj passed
And he will find Ms own at last.
Upoii the edfjr of April, ivhole
The ra/fh h qiiirkenf"^ - '^''''^
Tttih'.
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